Trees & the bees
Loss has become a familiar theme in stories about the natural world, from the diminishing numbers of wild animals and plants to weakening ecosystems and, ultimately, our own fading sense of connection. Two books – Silent Earth, by award-winning British entomologist Dave Goulson, and The Arbornaut, by pioneering American canopy botanist Meg Lowman – address this loss from the urgent perspective of lifetimes dedicated to research and conservation.
Both authors confront a reckoning of sorts. Within their generation, the losses in their respective fields of insect and forest ecology have been immense. About half of the world’s original old-growth forests has been destroyed to
