Description
With a foreword by Sir Harry Studholme, Evolving the Forest is a book with a wide array of voices celebrating the past and future of our trees, woods and forests. Contributions are from artists, scientists, policy-makers, foresters, NGOs, historians, philosophers and others, curated into three sections: ecology and forest management, creative responses, and philosophy & polemic. Like all art.earth Books the sumptuous and generous design comes with 230+ colour illustrations.
Evolving the Forest is designed by art.earth Books and edited by Simon Lloyd (Royal Forestry Society), Richard Povall (art.earth) and Jeremy Ralph (Timber Strategies).
When we say this is a unique publication we neither exaggerate nor indulge in hyperbole. It is a commingling of opinion, thought and inspiration about woods, trees and forests, often (but not always) referencing the frame of the 2019 centenary of the UK’s Forestry Commission. Evolving the Forest is a book about the past, the now and the future of our complex relationships with woods and trees, looking back as far as the Charter of the Forest in 1217 to the birth of modern UK forestry with the creation of the Forestry Commission in 1919 to a bold vision for forestry in 2120.
442 pages with 231 colour illustrations, bibliography, index. Paperback 21cmX21cm,
ISBN 978-0-9957196-3-7. Printed in Italy on 100% recycled 130g paper.
Some responses to the book
There is so much to it, so many different aspects, so many different thoughts and experiences, it is an adventure every time I open the book — MK
[Evolving the Forest] crystallises the realisation that trees and woodland mean far more than timber and investment opportunities to most people. This has been reviving for decades, but [this book] and the impact of the virus could well be seen as another landmark in forestry. — GP
Table of Contents
Foreword: Sir Harry Studholme
Introduction from art.earth (Richard Povall)
Ecology & Forest Management
Andreas Rutkauskas: Wildfire in an Uncertain Time: Photography and Regeneration
Christine Reid: Learning from nature to achieve a resilient future forest
Kathryn Nelson: Place, Patterns, Provenance & People: dynamic woodland biomes explored
Keith Kirby: Evolution or Revolution for Future Forestry
Lilian Cooper: The Life and Death of Trees
Roderick Leslie: Transforming the Forestry Commission
Manan Bhan: About Abandonment and Forest Regrowth
Philosophy & Polemic
Jeremy Ralph: Forestry 2120
Jude Allen: Tree communication
David Haley: Trees of Grace: the last ash and the return of the Green Dragon
Karen Price: How to Hygge a Tree (when you can’t hug a tree)
Shane Finan: We, the mycorrhizae
Liz O’Brien: Time to reflect on trees, woods and wonder
Fiona Stafford: Why Trees Matter
Sarah Abbott & Simon Leadbeater: If a Tree Falls… Perspectives on Sentience
Myc Riggulsford: The Charter of the Forest and our Lost Common Rights
Angela Summerfield: Green Truth – the forest as a unique creative space
Kate Prendergast: Forest as Commons: a manifesto for future opportunity
Flora Wiegmann: Re-enchantment
Adrian Newton: Increasing awareness of forest collapse through science and art
Jason Griffiths: Reading the Forest
Artistic responses
Cherie Sampson: Uphold (from Below) – An old cottonwood as a site of healing
Chris Poundwhite: Ash Tree
Naomi Hart & Jenny Pickerill: Old-growth forests of Takayna/Tarkine in north-west Tasmania
Marita Davidson: Evolving the Forest: Encountering Trees (and what they tell us)
Stacey Righton: Under the Mulberry
Bob Budd: Three sculptures
Rob & Harriet Fraser (somewhere-nowhere): Space for Imagining: an installation and an invitation
Marchant Barron: The Poetry of Trees
Margaret LeJeune: Shifting Halo
Petra Regent: Lockdown Time & Tree Time
Robin Walter: #LivingWithTrees
George Peterken and Stella Carr: Art Meets Ecology in Lady Park Wood
Epilogue: Jeremy Ralph
Works referenced
Index
