I recommend this book in my own book: 10 Principles For Spiritual Parenting.... It's a wonderful guide for children. It helps them figure out how to get quiet and go within.

I found this book to be quite interesting and informative. It discusses not only the trails themselves but their history. The physical descriptions of the trails are excellent, however I would have liked to see more detailed maps. It is a wonderful book to use as a reference.

This is an excellent case study of the failure of conservation policies. It describes the destruction of the forests of the Philippines, Malaysia (specifically Sabah and Sarawak), and Indonesia. Each has gone from largely forested to almost totally deforested in 40 years; SCIENCE magazine in May called for desperate last-ditch attempts to saving the last lowland forests of Indonesia, where only the national parks are left and even they are now being illegally logged. Yet all these countries--especially the Phils and Malaysia--once had excellent forestry policies and departments. There are very few good case studies of the breakdown of conservation and resource management; this is one of them. In fact, it is one of the very best I have seen on forest destruction in the Third World. The author introduces the concept of "rent seizure": Seizure by government personnel of the power to allocate resources and/or income streams therefrom. This is, to some degree, just a values-neutral word for "corruption," but it applies to some cases that are not so much corrupt as simply foolish and expedient. He shows that insecure bosses are more apt to rent-seize than secure ones; they need the support, NOW, of backers that they can pay off with logging rights. He does not apply his concept to the US or Canada, but one can easily substitute "Idaho" or "British Columbia" for "Philippines" or "Malaysia" in the conclusions of this book. There are some problems with the book. Ross minimizes the role of other nations, explicitly letting Japan off the hook. Yet Japan not only provided a vast and unregulated market, but pressured these countries to export round logs, discouraging their processing industries--and thus the value-added that would have made it more worth while to manage sustainably. Also minimally mentioned is the role of the World Bank and IMF. Yet these entities played their part. They continued to give loans to the countries in question, even after they knew that the loan money would be misappropriated and the loan paid back by running down the country's resource base as well as its education and health care institutions; this was particularly notorious in the case of Marcos' Philippines, where World Bank loans went into Imelda's shoe collection. Ross is also rather less hard on the national government of Malaysia than he might have been; he blames local politicians in Sabah and Sarawak, but much blame should be attached to the national government as well. On the other hand, emphasizing the local scene is a useful corrective to the excessive emphasis on "globalization" that has distorted so much recent literature. If the human race survives the 21st century, the destruction of the world's tropical forests will be seen as one of the worst crimes in history. Not only were the forests and their resident people destroyed; the benefits were almost nil. Southeast Asia's forests went into disposable chopsticks, temporary siding for concrete-pouring, and other throwaway trash of the consumer society. The orang-utan, the Indonesian rhinoceri, and thousands of other animals are extinct or will soon be, all so that rich people did not have to wash a few dishes. The indigenous peoples of these countries are driven from their homes and livelihoods, all to produce some trash. Ross shows us how this could happen--how governments and firms could wind up systematically and calmly working for two generations on such an insane project.

I have a young nephew, 3rd grade, who is interested in frogs. I came across this book and thought it was totally appropriate for my nephews age. He loved it! :-) I whole heartedly recommend this book.

read this book if you care about AFRICA

This is a translation of the German original 'Der Jahrring' (1983). A very thorough introduction into dendrochronology, i.e. the science of dating objects, buildings, etc by determining when the wood was formed. A tree's growth reflects its circumstances: in a bad year a tree grows only a little (narrow growth ring), in a good year a lot (wide growth ring). A sufficiently long series of growth rings is unique and can be dated exactly. That is, in principle. There is slightly more to it, as this book explains in 276 richly illustrated pages (black&white photographs, line drawings, diagrams, etc).

Like the other "first guides" this book on trees is both a study guide and a field guide. The study guide explains the differences between broadleaf and needle trees, seeds and cones of trees, how a forest comes to be, why forest fires can be helpful (some cones are triggered to release seeds only in intense heat) and more. The guide is full color beautiful photos of the most likely to be found trees on the left page, and similar trees with smaller pictures on the right. The right size and content for young kids, not too much info to make it confusing, but enough to get a fire of curiosity going.

Michael Jensen has provided foresters, agronomists, sociologists, economists, ecologists, students and anyone interested in the botany of Southeast Asia with an invaluable guide. And there can be no doubt that this guide is much needed: previously there had been no easily found guide in print for the identification of the cultivated trees of Southeast Asia. The color plates in the book include close-up renderings of bark, leaves, and fruit, as well as pictures of the whole trees in juxtaposition with people or animals to give a sense of the plant's size. Jensen has also included easy to read maps that show the trees' distribution throughout Southeast Asia. The guide's only fault (if one would call it that) is that its scope is limited to cultivated trees. Jensen intended the guide to be used to increase cultivation of these plants, and so had no intention of trying to put together a comprehensive guide to all the trees and plants of Southeast Asia, which would be a momentous task indeed, but one that is desperately needed nonetheless. Perhaps, if we're lucky, a complete field guide to Southeast Asia will be Orchid Press and Mr. Jensen's next endeavor.

Designed as a local supplement to what is now 'Trees_in_Canada' (aka 'Trees of the Northern United States and Canada') this book went through five editions before being extensively revised by the present author. This work goes deeply into the shrubs and subshrubs of BC and although it is not in the same league as 'Trees in Canada' it does look good.

It is a handy size, perhaps a trifle large for use in the field, but its nicely rounded corners compensate significantly. All the species treated are illustrated by a line drawing, which tries to keep a balance between giving botanical detail and giving an all-over morphological image and succeeds fairly well at this. In addition a section of color half tones is provided, which (as so often in this sort of book) gives the impression of having been added as an afterthought. These pictures would have benefitted from being printed at a, say, 30% higher magnification and against a lighter colored background: as it is these tend to drown in the all black pages. Nevertheless occasionally these color pictures do contribute.

This book is excellent for learning more about specific trees of the Great Lakes Region. It goes into much more detail than any field guide will ever tell you. The book spends 2 pages per tree, detailing the life history characteristics and typical habitats that the trees will be found in. I particularly like the fact that for each tree you can see a photo of the entire tree, as well as close ups of the bark and leaves (sometimes fruit too). The book provides satisfactory descriptions for identifying trees; however, does not provide any way to "key out" trees, so you must have some idea what you are looking at before you refer to the book. As a student in Ecology, I have found this book ten times more valuable than the price; however, I found that I needed an additional field guide to key out unknown trees in the field.