Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests

“It was strangely like war. They attacked the forest as if it were an enemy to be pushed back from the beachheads, driven into the hills, broken into patches, and wiped out. Many operators thought they were not only making lumber but liberating the land from the trees. . .” from The Last Wilderness, by Murray Morgan, 1976 Derrick Jensen, prize-winning author of A Language Older than Words and The Culture of Make Believe, and George Draffan, activist, researcher, and co-author with Jensen of Railroads & Clearcuts, collaborate again to expose the escalating global war on trees. Ever since Gilgamesh cut down the ancient cedar forests of Mesopotamia, civilizations and empires have foundered and collapsed in the wake of widespread deforestation. Today, with three quarters of the world’s original forests gone and the pace of cutting, clearing, processing, and pulping ever accelerating, Jensen and Draffan lay bare the stark scenario we face—we being not only people, but the nonhuman fabric of life itself—unless deforestation is slowed and stopped. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the relationship between deforestation and our ecological crisis as well as an essential “handbook” for forest and anti-globalization activists.