Customer Reviews

Forests in Peril: Tracking Deciduous Trees from Ice-Age Refuges Into the Greenhouse World

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Forests in Peril is well-done popular scientific writing that focuses on a very interesting and important question: where was the North American deciduous forest during the peak of the last ice age and what are the implications for the current and future ecologies of this continent? The author leads the reader through an interesting and increasingly sophisticated (but readily comprehended) progression of theories and the data-driven scientific processes used to prove or disprove the various hypotheses.
This book should appeal to any person with an interest in understanding the evolution and ecology of native American flora, as well as the implications for continuing climate change. The book leaves the reader with a wealth of new knowledge, several stimulating unanswered questions to think about, and a new appreciation for climate-associated environmental change (including implications for extinction of valued species). Forests in Peril should be required reading for anyone with an interest in the past, present, and future of the environment in which we live, or for anyone who has simply ever wondered about the amazing natural histories of the forests around us.

This is the book that launched our citizen naturalists group on the internet: Torreya Guardians. In reading Hazel's book, I was struck by how important the "pocket reserves" were to the preservation of rich forest species during the peak of the last glacial episode some 18,000 years ago (as well as all the previous glacial episodes). One of those pocket reserves runs along the edge of the Apalachicola River in the Florida Panhandle. And it is here that the most endangered conifer tree in the world, Torreya taxifolia, is gravely imperiled.

Torreya taxifolia was just one of many species that hunkered down in this furthest south patch of rich soil, while cold-adapted spruces dominated the landscape in Georgia and points north. But as the glacial subsided and warming ensued, it was time for Torreya and its companions to begin their migration north, back into the Appalachian Mountains and beyond. For one reason or another, however, Torreya taxifolia was left behind. It did not disperse back to the north; it just lingered in the little Florida reserve. Thus, even without post-1960s increases in atmospheric CO2, Torreya taxifolia would have been doomed without human assistance. For in the 1960s was when it stopped producing seeds. But because ecologists are not trained with a deep-time perspective, "native range" for this beleaguered tree is still considered to be only where it was historically found -- not where it likely was found pre-historically, during previous interglacial episodes.

"Forests in Peril" was thus a wake-up call for myself and others who joined to discuss and take actions to save this tree in ways that mainstream ecology and the Endangered Species Act still do not allow: by engaging in "assisted migration" ("assisted colonization") for this beautiful relative of the yew. We formed www.torreyaguardians.org, and in July 2008 we purchased from a plant nursery 31 seedlings of Torreya taxifolia and planted them ("rewilded" them) into forested landscapes of two private properties in the mountains of North Carolina. Welcome home, Torreya taxifolia! And thank you, Hazel Delcourt, for your magnificent and worldview-shifting book.

(review written by) Connie Barlow (spouse of Amazon.com member Michael Dowd)
Founder of Torreya Guardians, author of "The Ghosts of Evolution"