From the Redwood Forest: Ancient Trees, the Bottom Line, and a Headwaters Journey

No book has ever moved me the way this one has, I have tears in my eyes as I write this. I've just read many of the other reviews, and I don't have the way with words that some do, but they tell it like it is. Joan tells it like it is. Books don't get any better, and this one will change your life, like someone said it isn't all about happiness, and I have become informed and aware of too much to not so something about what is being done to our Redwood Forests, and what is being allowed to be done to our envirnment and watersheds. It's a true story, happening right now, this book documents it succinctly with amazing one of a kind pictures. It will open your eyes. Something needs to be done about Charles Hurwitz from Houston, Texas and his company MAXXAM. He is savaging The last of the Virgin Redwood Rainforest in California. I cannot beleive the CDF and the department of Forestry are "letting him get away with it." Not to mention the way he "aquired" the land, which is explained in the book. Please read this book. This book will light a fire in you, and like me you will have to do something. There are several websites listed in the back to point you in the right direction. I beleive this book is THE BEST one on the subject and if you plan on reading only one this should definitely be it. It has the most facts, information, and insight and is so well written, I couldn't say enough. And 57 pages of priceless color pictures! I am buying used copies for people, I would give one to EVERYONE if I could, and I have only said that about 2 books, and I read alot. The book is priceless. Thank You Joan

I read this book after visiting Arcata this summer. While there, I went on a BLM ranger-guided hike into the Headwaters, the "lush, mysterious, ancient, holy" (p. 82) subject of Dunning's book. I wanted to see for myself what all of the protesting was about. Enjoy this book, then experience the Headwaters' redwoods.Dunning's book is about many things. Trees. Community. Redwood politics. Bearing witness. The destruction of "one of the most magnificent ecosystems on Earth" (p. 3). Saying "enough!" Non-violent civil disobedience. Protecting America the beautiful. It is also about Dunning's personal journey, or "metamorphosis" as she calls it (p. 239), from naturalist to activist. "What is an 'environmentalist'," she reflects, "but simply a citizen who has shed denial, who has opened his or her eyes and said, 'it does matter nature does not have an infinite capacity to heal herself, himself, itself . . . I am responsible'" (p.228).Dunning's book reads like an insightful journal, in which she sets out to tell it like it is. "This book is not about happiness," she warns her reader on the first page. Rather, it is about "yielding to conscience. It is about a forest, and it is about us" (p. 1). She reveals that the destruction of old-growth forests like the Headwaters isn't someone else's problem, but our own. Dunning reports that in 500 years, we have destroyed more than ninety percent of our country's ancient forests, leaving only 3.5 percent to protect (p. 263). By saving the redwoods, we save ourselves. Dunning writes, "I want nothing more than to dissolve the polarity that plagues this county and this country, to bring us all back to center--the owls and the pussycats, the loggers and the environmentalists, the business community, everyone--to put us all in the same life raft, which is our Earth" (p. 61).Dunning also reports that redwood civil disobedience is nothing new. We learn, for instance, on November 19, 1929, Laura Perrott Mahan (1867-1937) lay down in the area now known as Founder's Grove in California's Avenue of the Giants to halt redwood logging. Dunning also writes, and her collaborator, Doug Thron's photographs show that clear-cutting "is an act of violence that affects trees, rivers, air, water, earth, and every person, owl, toad, or human who lives there" (p. 88). "Our whole earth is suffering from the cumulative effects of a million minute daily actions" (p. 240).Although much of Dunning's book is downright depressing, her real message is this: "Find a corner of the world and fix it" (p. 240). Turn your driveway into a garden. "For each of us," Dunning says, "regardless of where we live, there is a valley, a mountain range, a beach, a whale, a peregrine, a gnatcatcher, that if we merely give our time as a witness to the loss, will gradually unite the being of its existence with our own, will ground us by putting us in touch with what is wild and speechless, will emp

This book explains in simple terms the descruction that P.L unloads on our earth. We are all suffering from the greed of hurwitz. When they "take" a tree alongside a stream, the sun hits the water. Then the water becomes silted, and the water heats up. Then the salmon do not come anymore. Then the eagles have nothing to eat, so they leave. With no trees, no air is cleansed, and with bad air we die. Somone else needs to leave.

This journal is a tough analysis of an unscrupulous corporate raider's methods of mining the temperate old growth redwood rain forests of Humboldt County, California. Joan and Doug's curiosity and observations lead her and us through all the resent events and to many victims of such a mass liquidation of forest, soil, waterways and wildlife. As a resident of the area, I have read news accounts regarding the Headwaters Forest, but none have even come close to the articulate passion that Joan has focused on to repeatedly hit her mark. The natural descriptions of the remaining groves and wildlife are tender and capable of grinding the callousness from even the hardest of hearts. I find myself walking in circles of despair for all of the destruction that has already taken place. Doug's photo journal validates every accusation made against this corporations blatant grab for money at the expense our community, our children's future and everything sacred. Read this book, then make it required reading for all of your friends and family.

Earth First!, Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club - what images do these names conjure up in your mind? In the minds of many, including the author, Joan Dunning, before she got involved in writing her book From the Redwood Forest, hearing those groups made them think of long-haired, young activists who chain themselves in front of bulldozers just to save trees - "America's Renewable Resource." Joan Dunning got involved with the campaign to save California's headwaters forest and realized that these stereotypes, although partially accurate, are still far from the truth. Saving not just old-growth forests, but old-growth ecosystems, should be a top priority for a true citizen. She contends that whether we want to or not, one day, like her, we will have to stand up and face the reality that these trees and their ecosystems need saving. Dunning begins this book: "I never intended to get involved with the controversy surrounding the Headwaters Forest, let alone write a book about it." She writes this book in a unique first-person view, as her journey of learning about the Headwater's forest, including clever anecdotes and stories of her family and past. She puts in excerpts from what appears to be a journal, giving you a first-hand look at what she was feeling. She writes in a way that you feel as though you were there and can feel her feelings. Dunning says that this book is "about the satisfaction that comes from action, effective action, activism." She believes that many Americans are almost activists. They know that they care, they need to do something, but they are afraid to act. Just as she, an almost activist, emerged out of her cocoon of fear, she believes that soon others will also. She first began this emergence, September 15, 1996, when a friend invited her to a meeting of the Taxpayers for Headwaters. She agreed reluctantly and then ended up reading an excerpt on the marbled murrelet from her book Secrets of the Nest. While touching members of the audience, she was moved herself. She went to an Earth First! Rally and after hearing a speaker describe the deliberate sawing down of a Sequoia sempervirens (coast redwood). Then, in ultimatum, she attended a slide show by Doug Thron, a "war correspondent," to determine if she would or would become involved with this issue. The shocking photographs of clearcuts and slash fires that took out forests convinced her that this was not something to be taken lightly. So, after talking with Doug, she agreed to write a book in which he could publish his pictures. Headwaters Forest is in Northern California, south of Redwood National Park and small towns such as Eureka and Arcata. Headwaters Forest is made up of six groves: Headwaters grove, Elk Head Springs grove, Shaw Creek grove, Allen creek grove, Owl creek grove, and Yager camp. Throughout the book, the author describes her journey through