Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest - Softcover

Maser, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0870715291 ISBN 13: 9780870715297

Publisher: Oregon State University Press, 2001

Synopsis

In this classic work of ecology, Chris Maser traces the growth of an ancient forest in Oregon's Cascade Mountains from its fiery birth in the year 987 to the present. A unique biography of an ecosystem, Forest Primeval portrays a diverse fabric of plants, animals, and microorganisms working in unison.Maser offers precise yet evocative accounts of the lives and events within the burgeoning forest: the habits of deer mice who help reseed the burned earth, the seemingly accidental but vitally necessary symbiotic associations between fungus and tree root tips that stimulate growth, the constant predation among wildlife. He reveals how over the course of a millennium, microbes and fungi change a forest just as surely as a raging fire, only inconspicuously and more slowly.As the life cycles of the forest progress, Maser's minute scientific observations unfold against the backdrop of history, a chronology of human struggle and suffering that is paralleled in the life of . . . a single 1000-year-old Douglas fir. In taking this millennial view, Maser shows how the forest represents our spiritual and historical roots as human beings. Arguing that our survival is as intertwined with the forests as are the myriad interlocking life cycles that created them, Maser makes a plea for the immediate global implementation of restoration forestry.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

'biography' encompasses a thousand years of the natural history and evolution of an old-growth forest in the western Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Called an "estimable piece of work" by the Boston Globe, Forest Primeval traces the life cycle of a forest from its fiery inception in the year 987 to the present day, when logging threatens the forest and its inhabitants.

About the Author:

Chris Maser spent over twenty-five years as a research scientist in natural history and ecology. He lives in Corvallis, Oregon, where he writes about and consults on sustainablity issues.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oregon State University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0870715291
• ISBN 13: 9780870715297
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282