Article January 21, 2002 Issue

Seeing the forest because of the trees

A professor forestry speaks about some of the environmental issues facing the world.

By John K. Naysmith

THINK OF YOUR FAVORITE TREE —where it is, how it looks, how it makes you feel. It might be right there in the backyard, or the sugar maple in the field beyond the barn where the cattle occasionally go for shade.

Maybe it's the big baobab tree in a West African Village that takes 20 children with arms outstretched to encircle it.

Or, how about one of those majestically humbling redwoods that reach forever into the California sky, or an equally majestic, in a different sort of way, white pine perched high above the shoreline of Lake Superior in my neck of the woods.

About the author

John Naysmith is founding dean and professor emeritus in the faculty of forestry, Lake-head University, Ontario, Canada. In 1996 he received the Canadian Institute of Forestry Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Forestry.

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