Tom Forest

Before we take a rest from citing great forest history books, we should mention the greatest of them all: America’s Ancient Forests – From the Ice Age to the Age of Discovery by Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen, PhD, published by John Wiley and Sons, 2000. America’s Ancient Forests covers all the Holocene forest topics that we have at SOS Forests, except in greater depth and breadth. Tom discusses all of North America’s forests, their histories, anthropogenic fire, and much, much more, and does it with the style of an accomplished educator and professional writer.

Tom wrote America’s Ancient Forests with his head and his heart. He is a brilliant forester, forestry professor, and forest scientist who studied under other brilliant foresters and forest scientists. Tom is also part Native American, and was raised in the woods. His easy, almost chatty cadence belies tremendous experience and scholarship, (the bibliography is 75 pages long).

From the Preface of America’s Ancient Forests:

This book ends where most books on forests begin. It sweeps across vast reaches of time and space to tell the story of North America’s forests from the Ice Age to the age of European discovery. It tells how the movement of planets and fluctuations in the sun’s intensity affected the earth’s climate and, in turn, the disassembly and assembly of forests. But this saga is not just about climate and trees. Native Americans were an integral part of America’s forests. The forests and the people who lived there formed an inseparable whole that developed together over millennia. The book describes this relationship and shows how Native Americans helped to create and sustain the ancient forests that Europeans found beautiful enough to set aside in national parks.

America’s Ancient Forests is the book we wish we had written, but we didn’t, and probably couldn’t have, but we’ll never know, because Tom wrote it first.

There is one flaw in the book; it is too expensive, at $125 per copy, for the average commoner. We suggest that you check it out of the library to read it. Then, if you have any extra cash lying around, send it directly to Tom at The Forest Foundation.

The Forest Foundation is a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization created in 1994 to inform the public, specifically Californians, about the relationship between the environment and human needs. Considering that California’s population is projected to double in the next 30 years, it is imperative that the best information be available to the public so that we can make wise decisions about our environment and our quality of life.

To that end, The Forest Foundation strives to foster public understanding of the role forests play in the environmental and economic health of the state and the necessity of managing a portion of California’s private and public forests to provide wood products for a growing population.

Dr. Thomas Bonnicksen is working to save and restore our sacred forests. He is a hero, and a genius, and a nice guy, too. Here at SOS Forests, we hold tremendous respect and admiration for “Tom Forest”.