Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet

"Eloquent and fact-filled.... Ever Green, for all its scholarly precision, is ultimately an impassioned plea to save the world’s last great wild places by two men who had come, through long professional acquaintance, to love them. Readers will find their passion to be contagious." -- Richard Schiffman - Washington Post "Wide-ranging and earnest.... Ever Green diligently lays out the science supporting forest preservation.... But the book’s best moments come when the authors talk about the forests themselves and the luxuriant diversity of life—animal, plant, and human—that can be found in them. The result is an appeal to both the mind and the heart. We must preserve the forests to survive, and we must preserve the forests because it is a moral imperative." -- Cory Oldweiler - Boston Globe "An outstanding primer on the vital role intact forests play in sustaining the biosphere." -- Thomas Friedman - New York Times "There is no better or more readable guide to the bewildering array of threats to forests or to the economic and institutional programs created to protect them. . . . It’s impossible to read Ever Green without being moved by the vision and commitment of the people—including its authors—who’ve devoted themselves to protecting the world’s forests." -- Verlyn Klinkenborg - New York Review of Books "Nothing could be more important than saving the world’s last remaining forests, and no one could make a more eloquent case for this than John Reid and Thomas Lovejoy. Ever Green is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of life." -- Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth Extinction "Five giant forests—Amazon, Congo, New Guinea, and two taigas—holding carbon, diverse life, and the fate of the planet. This is a profoundly important, fresh-minded, deftly written, and constructive book. Therefore it’s also thrilling." -- David Quammen, author of The Tangled Tree and Spillover "John Reid and Thomas Lovejoy’s compelling and crucial narrative takes us to the astonishing intact cores of these lungs of our planet, these libraries of life that harbor diverse Indigenous peoples and multitudinous other-than-human beings. That so much remains is a welcome and uplifting revelation." -- Carl Safina, ecologist and author of Becoming Wild and Beyond Words "John Reid and Thomas Lovejoy make clear that the only way the world can prevent the worst of the coming climate disaster is by preserving and restoring its remaining megaforests.… Ever Green is a blueprint for saving megaforests, and saving ourselves." -- Scott Weidensaul, author of A World on the Wing "In the preservation of the remaining great forest landscapes of the world lies the very hope and perhaps the only hope of humanity to find a new way of living on this planet.… Ever Green itself is a prayer for the well-being of the earth." -- Wade Davis, author of Magdalena and Into the Silence "A very clear-eyed, practical and persuasive plan for how to save these forests, and maybe the rest of us in the process." -- Richard Powers - The Ezra Klein Show "Captivating.... A highly readable, eloquent reminder of the dire importance of our forests." -- Kirkus, starred review "The authors expertly and enthusiastically illuminate the intricately webbed fecundity of these vast forests.... With stunning photographs, lively anecdotes, fresh perspectives, spirited prose, and realistic and just solutions, this is deeply informative and inspiring forest advocacy." -- Booklist, starred review "[Reid and Lovejoy] convincingly argue in this trenchant work that preserving Earth’s five megaforests is vital to stop climate change.... The authors depict the flora and fauna of these far-flung locations in vivid descriptions that chart how each species is part of a vast ecosystem, and make a strong case for the inherent value of the plants, animals, and people that live in the megaforests. This clarion call should have a spot on the shelves of climate-minded readers." -- Publishers Weekly "A compelling argument.... This absorbing book provides an in-depth treatment of these boreal and tropical forests and why their preservation is a crucial step to mitigate climate change." -- Library Journal