(Image: Image Source/Rex Features)
Kayleigh Lawrence, contributor
NO ONE could sensibly deny that trees play an important role in the environment. In The Global Forest, Diana Beresford-Kroeger takes this one step further and argues that trees are the very foundation that all life is reliant upon.
The author's veneration and awe of the natural world began when she was a child, growing up on her parents' farm in Ireland. "It is out of this child, this field with its golden furze, that this book was born."
Employing the story-telling methods of an Irish Seanchaí - "the keeper of legends and oral traditions" - the book is comprised of 40 essays, or "leaves", each of which explore a different theme. The cultural, spiritual and ecological history of trees become interlaced.
The essays also consider trees in the context of many different areas of plant science, ranging from ecology and horticulture to ethnobotany and their still-unfulfilled potential as providers of medicine. However, the style of the prose, and perhaps the brevity of each chapter, do not allow these "considerations" to grow into anything more than that.
Scientific explanations of why trees are so critical to the fabric of life are fleeting, with each section merely touching on evidence that points to the many roles that trees have within the elaborate matrix of the natural world.
In the chapter entitled "A chat about climate change", Beresford-Kroeger tries to explain why protecting and restoring forests is central in the global battle against climate change. Unfortunately, the grandiloquent prose gets in the way of explaining a fairly straightforward scientific concept. In this particular chapter, the reader must first get to grips with an extended metaphor comparing carbon cycles to a financial system - replete with bull and bear markets, capital reserves and treasury bills - before they can appreciate the science.
In addition to this, the pace and rhythm of the adopted Seanchaí style can further confuse the science and does little to make it easy to assimilate.
Nevertheless, The Global Forest is a beautifully written and carefully constructed effort. And if there is one thing Beresford-Kroeger cannot be accused of, it is a lack of boldness and originality: the book delves into environmental sciences with a very fresh perspective and it is alive with Gaelic traditions. For these reasons, it is certainly worth a read.
As a lecturer and authority on botany, Beresford-Kroeger hopes her book will inspire readers to view the natural world with a new sense of wonder and optimism. I have to say that as I walked to work this morning, I did begin to see the trees with a newfound respect and awe. You could say that's a mission accomplished.
The Global Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Published by Viking