The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them

The follow-up to the international bestseller The Hidden Life of Trees, offering compelling insights into the lungs of our planet and the fragility of our intertwined futures.

Trees can survive without humans, but we can't live without trees. Even if human-caused climate change devastates our planet, trees will return – as they do, always and everywhere, even after ice ages, catastrophic fires, destructive storms and deforestation. It would be nice if we were around to see them flourish.

The Power of Trees is forester Peter Wohlleben's follow-up to his internationally bestselling The Hidden Life of Trees. It is as fascinating and eye-opening as it is trenchant in its critique: on the one hand, Wohlleben shares astonishing discoveries about how trees pass knowledge down to succeeding generations that helps them survive climate change; on the other, he is unsparing in his criticism of those who wield economic and political power – who plant trees exclusively for the sake of logging and virtue-signalling, even as they ruthlessly exploit nature. The Power of Trees is a love letter to the forest and a passionate argument for protecting nature's boundless diversity – not only for the trees, but also for ourselves.

'A magisterial take on how forests can save the planet from our worst endeavours' —Fred Pearce

'An eye-opening insight into the long-lived world of trees, and what they have learnt from our impact on their world. The Power of Trees reminds us that trees are not the slow learners when it comes to climate change – we are.' —Danielle Clode, author of Koala: A Life in Trees