Hidden Forest : Biography of an Ecosystem (ISBN 0805014918)

Amazon.com Review:
Tucked away into the verdant folds of the Cascade foothills east of Eugene, Oregon, there is a forest that has been forming since before Columbus first set foot in the New World. The 16,000-acre Andrews Experimental Forest is an old-growth forest, a description largely unknown to the American public until the late 1980s, when the spotted owl swooped into notoriety. In some forestry circles, other adjectives like decadent are used to describe this forest's towering Douglas firs, western red cedars, and western hemlocks--that is, a forest that has reached maximum wood fiber capacity. Loggers contend that allowing such giant trees to die, rot, and fall over is a waste of resources. "I'm clearcutting to save the forest," declared a partisan newspaper ad in the go-go timber years of the 1970s, when old growth was liquidated at an unprecedented rate to make way for managed forest crops. The only problem with this view is that it misses the forest for the trees. In The Hidden Forest, Jon Luoma takes us below--and above--the canopy to view the natural processes of an ancient forest and visit with the scientists working there. The Andrews is unique in that it brings together scientists from diverse fields to join a collaborative effort, with the end result being an entire ecosystem under the microscope. In the heart of summer research season, scientists can be found burrowing in the soil under logs; or trapping insects fifteen stories or more up in the tree canopy with the aid of rock-climbing gear; or scrambling crablike in a neoprene wet suit in a rushing, buffeting mountain stream.... One optimistic scientist is examining the process of rot in fallen trees, a study that will take two centuries in the case of these old-growth logs, meaning that "it will be up to the contemporaries of (his) great-great-great-great-grandchildren to complete the analysis he has begun." Others are busy identifying thousands of species new to science. To date, this research has yielded a "wellspring of key discoveries," turning the environmental and scientific communities upside-down. But meanwhile, the last remnants of unprotected Pacific old-growth forest continue to fall to the chainsaw. "It remains to be seen," writes Luoma, "how long it might take some entrenched U.S. Forest Service managers to fully embrace more ecosystem-based approaches." The Hidden Forest is testimony as to why sooner is better than later. --Langdon Cook

Highlighting the Hidden Forest: Luoma as Virgil to Our Dante:
Luoma takes the reader on an intimate, guided tour with some of the tenacious pioneers of forested ecosystems research and the mysterious processes whereby the woods become established, grow and change--in the case of the moist coastal uplands of western Oregon, processes that take centuries to complete all their steps. For those who like their science in the field, in the raw, and introduced by the human practitioners struggling (and loving) the dance of theory and experiment, this is a must-have. Ancient Forests rhetoric too frequently airbrushes over the hard scientific inquiry that helped reveal both the uniqueness of the Oregon forested ecosystems research site and yet suggests that some of these hidden processes, or ones similar, will be found to play crucial roles in other forest places as well. If Luoma doesn't beat me to it, I could do worse than spend the rest of my career writing a series for all the Long-Term Ecological Research stations that perform the valuable work of building baselines and foundations in ecology for every major ecological region. At least, this is the sort of book that makes a reader feel that way!

knowledge made into pleasure reading:
Luoma knows how to take important scientific work in forest ecology, and turn it into a book that is a pleasure to read. If learning had been this much fun in school, think how well educated we would all be today! Seriously, I like to read well-written books, but I prefer them to be to tell me things I din't know. Hidden forests does. Another really good read out this season is Bullough's Pond, a treatment of ecological history and industrial revolution that I found fascinating, and it read like a novel.

Ought to be required reading.:
Not only was The Hidden Forest a pleasure to read, but Jon Luoma told me so many things I didn't know. I thought I knew a great deal about forests, since I live next to a park, hike in the mountains, and have read many books about trees, but this book showed me that there really is a hidden forest right under my nose that I'd been mostly unaware of. Now, as I walk the trail through the woods, I think of the 16,000 tiny insects beneath my foot every time I take a step, and I think of the vital work they do that supports all life on Earth. Policy decisions are being made every day--just recently the Bush administration announced plans to increase logging of old growth forests--in a political and economic climate in which most people are ignorant of the science of forest ecosystems. How can we possibly make the right choices if people are not properly informed? For example, many people have bought into the notion that protecting old growth hurts the economy and costs jobs. In fact, the losses in the salmon industry, billions of dollars, could have been prevented if old growth forests had been protected. Also, millions if not billions of dollars of damage caused by flooding in Washington and Oregon could have been avoided if the Forest Service had followed the advice of the scientists at the Andrews Experimental Forest. Still, these scientists haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what we need to know about forest ecosystems. They haven't even identified half of the species that live in our forests. How can we know the value of what we are losing if we don't even understand what it is or how it works? Their work should be funded at a much higher level. (Check out their web site: http://www.fsl.orst.edu/lter/index.cfm ) While this book is not for everyone, it should be read by the following people: --Policy makers in the Forest Service. --Everyone in the Bush administration. --People who vote. --People who live in wood houses or use paper products. --People who enjoy clean water. --People who like to breath oxygen. The rest of you needn't bother to read it. (While I sound like I'm being paid by either the author or the Scientists and the Andrews Forest, I had never heard of either of them before my mom got me this book for my birthday. I just really liked the book--one of the best and most significant I've ever read.)

Just a Pleasure:
I don't think I can add anything of much value to the editorial reviews, all of which are excellent and fairly describe this book. For all you who have ever walked in an old forest, gone hiking in a forest preserve, felt the immensity and wisdom that is offered there, this book brings that gloriously to life again. Luoma's description of his ride in the crane is worth the price alone. Sweeping over the forest canopy twenty-five stories in the air is not for the faint of heart. Only 209 pages of reading, it flies by in just a few days. And he brings the scientists who work on all this to our dens with such intimacy. These are people who work in the field, not huddled over their microscopes, mostly. Pick it up; you won't be sorry.

Draws Scientific Blood!:
In the argument on whether or not to save old growth, this book draws scientific blood. I read this book non-stop until I finished. I've never come across a work that so succintly explains the scientific research on old growth forests in the Northwest. Want to understand why old growth is important? Read this book.