How Trees Can Save the World

by Peter Wohlleben

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Environment

272 pages, Paperback

Published March 28, 2024

About the author

Peter Wohlleben is a German forester and author who writes on ecological themes in popular language.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just love Wohlleben's nature writing. A warm, compassionate and educational book all about the power of trees and how we could and must harness their carbon capture abilities to tackle climate change. As always, it's written in an accessible tone but I think this one might be more suited to a tree-knowledgeable reader! Start with his The Hidden Life of Trees book, then return here.

[S117 · Rating 5 out of 5]

You could say Wholleben continues from where he left off after his book, the Hidden Life of Trees, and shows us that the forest has even more layers. This time we are introduced to the community around the trees, their neighbours and even their cohabitators. We're talking about the interconnections of trees, fungi and bacteria, and larger forest animals like deer and boar.

Afterwards he uses a sizeable chunk of the book arguing how forestry and hunting needs to change, what it should look like in the future, as well as telling us how to fix a lot of the problems we are having right now (spoiler: let nature fix it themselves, aka leave the forests alone). This book is therefore less about learning "fun facts" of trees, and more a call to action.

The language is still casual and accessible, the chapters has a couple of more pages than in Hidden Life of Trees, but are not what I will call long.

I will continue like last time by giving this book a five stars seeing as, regardless of the actual execution of the book, what is being discussed here is important, and this book will help a lot of people easily be able to take part in the discussion.