This book tells the story of the giant eucalypt, the Mountain Ash, which grows in the north and east of Melbourne. A single tree can reach a height of 120 feet in 20 years, making it the worlds tallest hardwood.

Mountain Ash draws together exciting new findings on the effects of fire and on post-fire ecological dynamics following the 2009 wildfires in the Mountain Ash forests of the Central Highlands of Victoria. The book integrates data on forests, carbon, fire dynamics and other factors, building on 6 years of high-quality, multi-faceted research coupled with 25 years of pre-fire insights. Topics include: the unexpected effects of fires of varying severity on populations of large old trees and their implications for the dynamics of forest ecosystems; relationships between forest structure, condition and age and their impacts on fire severity; relationships between logging and fire severity; the unexpectedly low level of carbon stock losses from burned forests, including those burned at very high severity; impacts of fire at the site and landscape levels on arboreal marsupials; persistence of small mammals and birds on burned sites, including areas subject to high-severity fire, and its implications for understanding how species in this group exhibit post-fire recovery patterns. With spectacular images of the post-fire environment, Mountain Ash will be an important reference for scientists and students with interests in biodiversity, forests and fire.

This beautifully-written book tells the story of Australia's giant eucalypt, the Mountain Ash, which grows in the region north and east of Melbourne. Visited seasonally by indigenous people and later a site of mining and sawmilling for settlers, as well as contested ground for conservationists, the life cycles and fire cycles of the forests span millennia. Tom Griffiths tells the environmental, ecological and social history of a unique Australian forest, and in doing so, tells the story of the continent as a whole.

A Guardian Best Nature Book of the Year The magic and mystery of the woods are embedded in culture, from ancient folklore to modern literature. They offer us refuge: a place to play, a place to think. They are the generous providers of timber and energy. They let us dream of other ways of living. Yet we now face a future where taking a walk in the woods is consigned to the tales we tell our children. Immersing himself in the beauty of woodland Britain, Peter Fiennes explores our long relationship with the woods and the sad and violent story of how so many have been lost. Just as we need them, our woods need us too. But who, if anyone, is looking out for them?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Named a Best Book of 2021 by Newsweek, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times “A glorious book—an assured novel that’s gorgeously told.” —The New York Times Book Review “An incredibly moving epic about an unforgettable family.” —CBS Sunday Morning “[An] absorbing novel…I felt both grateful to have known these people and bereft at the prospect of leaving them behind.” —The Washington Post A stunning novel about love, work, and marriage that asks how far one family and one community will go to protect their future. Colleen and Rich Gundersen are raising their young son, Chub, on the rugged California coast. It’s 1977, and life in this Pacific Northwest logging town isn’t what it used to be. For generations, the community has lived and breathed timber; now that way of life is threatened. Colleen is an amateur midwife. Rich is a tree-topper. It’s a dangerous job that requires him to scale trees hundreds of feet tall—a job that both his father and grandfather died doing. Colleen and Rich want a better life for their son—and they take steps to assure their future. Rich secretly spends their savings on a swath of ancient redwoods. But when Colleen, grieving the loss of a recent pregnancy and desperate to have a second child, challenges the logging company’s use of the herbicides she believes are responsible for the many miscarriages in the community, Colleen and Rich find themselves on opposite sides of a budding conflict. As tensions in the town rise, they threaten the very thing the Gundersens are trying to protect: their family. Told in prose as clear as a spring-fed creek, Damnation Spring is an intimate, compassionate portrait of a family whose bonds are tested and a community clinging to a vanishing way of life. An extraordinary story of the transcendent, enduring power of love—between husband and wife, mother and child, and longtime neighbors. An essential novel for our times.

A tribute to an extraordinary landscape now under severe threat. The exquisite photographs reveal the mountain ash forests of central Victoria to be one of Australia's great natural treasures. The city of Melbourne lies on the edge of a vast plain surrounded by a green and blue mountainous rim, whose hills and peaks are home to the magnificent Mountain Ash, the tallest flowering plant on the planet. The Mountain Ash forests were 20 million years in the making, and deep within the valleys are even more ancient, Gondwanic rainforests. The Great Forest showcases these forests as well as the world's tallest moss, breathtaking snow gum plateaus and the remnants of massive extinct volcanoes. The Great Forest is a tribute to extraordinary landscapes now under severe threat from logging and wildfires, such as the catastrophic fire that struck on Black Saturday in 2009. It uncovers the intricate webs of life that make Mountain Ash forests so much more than their towering trees. It explores the unique forests that have sustained the Gunaikurnai, Taungurung and Wurundjeri peoples for tens of thousands of years, and that provide a home for creatures found almost nowhere else. The exquisite photographs reveal the Central Highlands of Victoria to be one of Australia's largely undiscovered natural treasures. 'With its glorious photographs, The Great Forest shows why these forests must be preserved for future generations.' - Tim Flannery 'The Great Forest shows the incredible beauty, wonder and value of this amazing part of Victoria.' - David Pocock 'It's rare to read a book that fills your heart with joy and your eyes with tears, all at the same time. The Great Forest does just this.' - Sophie Cunningham 'This wonderful new book highlights the magnificent wet forests of Victoria, and why it is so critical to protect them for their biodiversity, their beauty, and for all of humanity.' - Dame Jane Goodall

The first history of and ecology of the Ash Tree, exploring its place in human culture and explaining Ash Disease.