INEXHAUSTIBLE, so America’s forests once seemed. For early generations of Americans, the immense virgin forests of this continent provided a bounty of food, fuel, and shelter. Without these vast forestlands, the colonization of North America would have proved greatly more difficult.
AMERICA’S WILD WOODLANDS tells the fascinating story of our forest heritage. Along the way, you will learn of the abuse our woodlands have suffered. By the latter 1800s, only remnants of America’s timberlands remained in many places. Before the turn of the centu¬ry, Congress passed the first legislation aimed at protecting our woodlands. And in Canada, with its vast forest reserves, provincial agencies became responsible for administering millions of acres.
“Forest acreage has increased since the early 1900s,” observes author William Howarth of the heavily populated northeastern United States. Howarth is part of the team of writers and photographers who report on woodlands from Florida to Ontario, from California to British Columbia — and across the continent between.
Lively text and sparkling photographs reveal forest worlds of rare beauty, delicately balanced ecosystems inhabited by grizzly bears or alligators, wood storks or warblers. Meet people who live in the forest and work with its products: a craftsman weaving a chair seat of bitternut hickory, an artist carving a totem pole from western red cedar, loggers hauling timber with horses or helicopters.
In the pages of this book you will visit earth’s largest, tallest, and oldest living trees — giant sequoias, coast redwoods, and bristlecone pines. Yet this volume describes more than scenic wilderness. Scientists and foresters explain their efforts to deal with woodland problems such as raging wildfires, acid rain, and devastating infestations. Finally, examples of progressive forest manage¬ment offer hope for the future of America’s woodlands.