Here is the opening paragraph of Ch1 . . .
"Wild nature is self-willed: it does what it likes. Yet we seek to control it, until it is tamed, domesticated, still natural but no longer wild. The story of civilisation describes a journey out of the wild, from the forest to the city, which has exploited natural landscapes, subjugated nature and extinguished species along the way. Over the last 11,000 years, the wild has been reduced to a few dominant plants (wheat, maize, spruce) and most of the world’s vertebrates are now either human or dependent on humans for their existence (sheep, cows, chickens). Under the reign of Homo sapiens, the oceans are awash with plastic, rainforests are being pulped, bushfires are raging, diseases are going global and many wild species, companions
on our evolutionary journey, face extinction. We live on a degraded planet, with less
natural abundance and biodiversity than there was just 50 years ago. Trees are the natural state. So the real question is, why not trees? What have we done to stop trees growing almost everywhere?"
The book looks deeply into why we have so few trees now, when once there were so many. Until we understand this, we cannot live with more trees in our lives.
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