THE GHOST FOREST: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods.

King, Greg.

ISBN 10: 1541768671 / ISBN 13: 9781541768673

Published by PublicAffairs, New York, 2023

About this Item

First printing. A difficult book to read for anyone who loves the redwoods, since it makes it clear how much has been lost. This is called "the definitive story of the California redwoods, their discovery and their exploitation, as told by an activist who fought to protect their existence against those determined to cut them down. Few who visit the worldÕs tallest trees understand how unlikely it is that these last isolated groves of giant trees still stand at all. In this gripping historical memoir, journalist and famed redwood activist Greg King examines how investors and a growing U.S. economy drove the timber industry to cut down all but 4 percent of the original two-million-acre redwood ecosystem. . The land grab began in 1849, when a 'green gold rush' of migrants came to exploit the legendary redwoods that grew along the Russian River. Several generations later, in 1987, Greg King discovered and named Headwaters Forest - at 3,000 acres the largest ancient redwood habitat remaining outside of parks - and he led the movement to save this grove." He also describes how the so-called "Save the Redwoods League," led by businessmen and industrialists (and racists) was focused only on saving a few "representative" sections along the highway while making it easier to log the many acres still untouched. SIGNED on the title page with the words "Look up!" Illustrated with photographs, many in full color. Bibliography, index. xiii, 457 pp. Very near fine in a like dustjacket.

Seller Inventory # 92414

Bibliographic Details

• Title: THE GHOST FOREST: Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods.
• Publisher: PublicAffairs, New York
• Publication Date: 2023
• ISBN 10: 1541768671
• ISBN 13: 9781541768673
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: FINE
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • California

About this title

Synopsis

The definitive story of the California redwoods, their discovery and their exploitation, as told by an activist who fought to protect their existence against those determined to cut them down.

Every year millions of tourists from around the world visit California’s famous redwoods. Yet few who strain their necks to glimpse the tops of the world’s tallest trees understand how unlikely it is that these last isolated groves of giant trees still stand at all. In this gripping historical memoir, journalist and famed redwood activist Greg King examines how investors and a growing U.S. economy drove the timber industry to cut down all but 4 percent of the original two-million-acre redwood ecosystem. King first examined redwood logging in the 1980s—as an award-winning reporter. What he found in the woods convinced him to leap the line of neutrality and become an activist dedicated to saving the very last ancient redwood groves remaining in private hands. 

The land grab began in 1849, when a “green gold rush” of migrants came to exploit the legendary redwoods that grew along the Russian River. Several generations later, in 1987, Greg King discovered and named Headwaters Forest—at 3,000 acres the largest ancient redwood habitat remaining outside of parks—and he led the movement to save this grove. After a decade of one of the longest, most dramatic, and violent environmental campaigns in US history, in 1999 the state and federal governments protected Headwaters Forest. 

The Ghost Forest explores a central question, an overhanging mystery: What was it like, this botanical Elysium that grew only along the Northern California coast, a forest so spectacular—but also uniquely valuable as a cornerstone of American economic growth—that in the end it would inspire life-and-death struggles? Few but loggers and surveyors ever saw such magnificent trees, ancient sentinels that, like ghosts, have informed King’s understanding of the world. On a lifelong journey, King finds himself through the generations, and through the trees.

A Next Big Idea Club Must-Read Title

About the Author

Greg King is an award-winning journalist and activist credited with spearheading the movement to protect Headwaters Forest, in Humboldt County, California. King initiated the “redwood wars” following the notorious 1985 takeover of the venerable Pacific Lumber Company by the Houston energy and real estate conglomerate Maxxam.  Greg King has spent decades researching redwood logging and preservation efforts. King’s articles and photographs have appeared in The Sun, Sierra, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, the Portland Oregonian, the Sacramento Bee, Mother Jones and other publications.  In 2016 the Environmental Protection Information Center presented King with its annual Sempervirens Lifetime Achievement Award. King lives in Humboldt County.