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My mind wandered throughout this book. Sometimes the story would grab my attention and other times I would be so distracted that I had no idea what was going on- but I also wasn‘t invested enough to go back and figure it out. #bookdump4

Tree Thieves looks at some of the history and scope of tree poaching, then focuses in on the poaching of Redwoods (especially their burls) in the PNW. Really interesting stuff. A big thanks to @Soubhiville for putting this one on my radar!

A gripping, eye-opening look at illegal logging: its staggering extent, effects and causes. 30% of the world‘s wood trade is illegal. 80% of Amazonian wood is poached. I was impressed by the author‘s efforts to get to know some of the people in the Pacific Northwest who steal trees & why. Prevention of tree poaching in this area is best dealt with by addressing socio-economic factors that encourage poaching. #CanadianAuthor

Corporations continue to cut as much as they can in the Amazon today—by some accounts, the area of a soccer field every minute. […]
By the summer of 2021, so much damage had been done to the Amazon rain forest that it began to emit more carbon than it stores.

Big trees (those with trunks more than 21” diameter) have a particular power to curb climate change: because they have reached full root, bark & canopy development, they store more carbon than younger, still-developing new growth. A study in 2018 found that the world‘s widest trees hold about half of all the carbon stored in global forests.

… meth had originally been developed as a worker‘s drug.

Automation, globalization & increased education requirements—compounded by failures in government & institutions—have given rise to a generation of disconnected & fearful people. The number of men who have dropped out of the labour force & stopped looking for work has quintupled since the 1950s. ⬇️

Within its boundaries, Redwood National and State Parks holds 45% of the world‘s remaining old-growth coast redwood forest & the planet‘s tallest tree. Of the 2 million acres of coast redwoods that once carpeted the region, just 4% (along a 450-mile-long stretch) remains.

I clearly remember the half-year of continuous protest in 1993 when the BC government planned to open two-thirds of the old growth in Clayoquot Sound region to logging. “It would become the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history.”
(Internet photo)

Really interesting NF about mostly the Pacific NW. There is a lot of connection between the end of the logging industry, meth, and lumber poaching. If you read Damnation Spring and wanted a NF “what happened next”, this would be a great companion book. Author touched on tree poaching in lots of other regions of the world as well.