This book tells the story of the hopeful science and trusting art of forestry. It is a story about the hopes of foresters and other scientists to understand the forests more deeply, and about their unspoken trust that their knowledge could ensure an enduring sylvan future. Much has been written on the origins and development of modern forestry in various countries, and on the people and institutions involved, but there is little in the forest history literature that explains what the science actually is. Forest knowledge has an ancient history documented since classical times and applied within the intricate social and legal systems of medieval Europe. This volume is concerned with the modern form of forest science, founded in Europe early in the nineteenth century, when regimes for managing the forests, that could be traced to the ancient world and had flourished in the Middle Ages, were disrupted. New ways had to be found. Foresters have tried to know their forests scientifically for over three centuries and have hoped to apply their knowledge to good effect, even though they could not live to see the futures they envisioned. How far did their scientific understanding enable a sylvan future? What, over the three centuries discussed in this book, were their successes and failures? And now what might the future hold for forest science and its application? This is no tale of triumph: the outlook for the world's forests is too bleak for that. While many forests are flourishing, the climate is changing, tropical forests are disappearing, others are degrading, species are being lost, governments dither, international conferences fail. This is another, longer story - one of inquiry, of science and persistent endeavour to find a better future for the forests.

Is that the nub of the world's environmental crisis: that in the business of everyday, we pass by with our connections unacknowledged? Anthropocene Days gathers 27 easy-to-read short essays about the environment and climate change in everyday life. While the world and governments are beset by the great woes of changing climate, deforestation, species extinction, air pollution, fouling oceans and so on, we go about individually and locally as best we can from day to day. Anthropocene Days contends that these two domains, so apparently separate, are essentially connected. The book looks at the diverse and mundane activities of daily life to show how the environment is experienced, and does this very personally by drawing its observations from the author's life. It is part memoir, part recent history - a medley of short essays with themes of landscape change, forests, trees, war, fire, pestilence and the domestic life of housing, dusting and clutter. Motivated by present concerns, some reach back to the 1940s. They are set in Australia, Britain, India, Singapore and America. Anthropocene Days is a deceptively easy read. It does not hector readers on what to do, but its ruminations, drawn from long engagement with environments, encourage reflection on how we pass our everyday lives while the planet changes.

A HISTORY OF THE SCIENCE AND IDEAS OF FORESTRY OVER THREE CENTURIES This book tells the story of the hopeful science and trusting art of forestry. It is a story about the hopes of foresters and other scientists to understand the forests more deeply, and about their unspoken trust that their knowledge could ensure an enduring sylvan future. Much has been written on the origins and development of modern forestry in various countries, and on the people and institutions involved, but there is little in the forest history literature that explains what the science actually is. Forest knowledge has an ancient history documented since classical times and applied within the intricate social and legal systems of medieval Europe. This volume is concerned with the modern form of forest science, founded in Europe early in the nineteenth century, when regimes for managing the forests, that could be traced to the ancient world and had flourished in the Middle Ages, were disrupted. New ways had to be found. Foresters have tried to know their forests scientifically for over three centuries and have hoped to apply their knowledge to good effect, even though they could not live to see the futures they envisioned. How far did their scientific understanding enable a sylvan future? What, over the three centuries discussed in this book, were their successes and failures? And now what might the future hold for forest science and its application? This is no tale of triumph: the outlook for the world's forests is too bleak for that. While many forests are flourishing, the climate is changing, tropical forests are disappearing, others are degrading, species are being lost, governments dither, international conferences fail. This is another, longer story - one of inquiry, of science and persistent endeavour to find a better future for the forests.

In an age of consciousness about conservation, this is a worthy biography of a man with a passionate drive for forests. Charles Lane Poole (1885-1970), Western Australia's first Conservator of Forests, is the flawed hero of this biography. Motivated by the ideals of forest conservation and its science, he followed their dictates in Western Australia and across the world. Poole was the first man to attempt the task of managing and preserving Australia's magnificent jarrah and karri forests at a time when they were being felled for railway sleepers. This fascinating biography follows his life from his birth in England in 1885 to Ireland, France, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Western Australia, Papua New Guinea, Canberra, where he established Australia's national forestry school, and Sydney, where he died in 1970.