When I first read Dr. Joan Maloof‘s then newly published book from Timber Press titled Nature’s Temples; The Complex World of Old Growth Forests back in 2016, I was struck by how much of what she had written so well aligned with my own experience growing up in the coastal rainforest of the Pacific Northwest coast. Many were the times whilst I was reading the book that I felt she was reaching directly into my own memories of the inestimable times I have spent amongst those trees and transferring the signs, sounds, and feelings of doing so directly onto the pages of her book. Unfortunately, as so many books do after too short a lifespan in publication, her book went out of print.
Fortunately for all interested in forest ecology, I am very glad to report Dr. Maloof has now revised and updated her 2016 book into the newly published and slightly re-titled Nature’s Temples; A Natural History of Old Growth Forests, published just this past April by Princeton University Press. What’s new in this newly published volume? According to the publisher, this new edition “sheds new light on the special role forests play in removing carbon from the atmosphere and shares what we know about the interplay between wildfires and ancient forests.”
