Two Billion Trees And Counting

Short-listed for the 2012 Speaker’s Book Award Edmund Zavitz (1875–1968) rescued Ontario from the ravages of increasingly more powerful floods, erosion, and deadly fires. Wastelands were talking over many hectares of once-flourishing farmlands and towns. Sites like the Oak Ridges Moraine were well on their way to becoming a dust bowl and all because of extensive deforestation. Zavitz held the positions of chief forester of Ontario, deputy minister of forests, and director of reforestation. His first pilot reforestation project was in 1905, and since then Zavitz has educated the public and politicians about the need to protect Ontario forests. By the mid-1940s, conservation authorities, provincial nurseries, forestry stations, and bylaws protecting trees were in place. Land was being restored. Just a month before his death, the one billionth tree was planted by Premier John Robarts. Some two billion more would follow. As a result of Zavitz’s work, the Niagara Escarpment, once a wasteland, is now a UNESCO World Biosphere. Recognition of the ongoing need to plant trees to protect our future continues as the legacy of Edmund Zavitz.

Short-listed for the 2012 Speaker’s Book Award Edmund Zavitz (1875–1968) rescued Ontario from the ravages of increasingly more powerful floods, erosion, and deadly fires. Wastelands were talking over many hectares of once-flourishing farmlands and towns. Sites like the Oak Ridges Moraine were well on their way to becoming a dust bowl and all because of extensive deforestation. Zavitz held the positions of chief forester of Ontario, deputy minister of forests, and director of reforestation. His first pilot reforestation project was in 1905, and since then Zavitz has educated the public and politicians about the need to protect Ontario forests. By the mid-1940s, conservation authorities, provincial nurseries, forestry stations, and bylaws protecting trees were in place. Land was being restored. Just a month before his death, the one billionth tree was planted by Premier John Robarts. Some two billion more would follow. As a result of Zavitz’s work, the Niagara Escarpment, once a wasteland, is now a UNESCO World Biosphere. Recognition of the ongoing need to plant trees to protect our future continues as the legacy of Edmund Zavitz.

A rare, uniform perspective on premiers John Robarts, Bill Davis, Frank Miller, David Peterson, Bob Rae, Mike Harris, Ernie Eves, Dalton McGuinty, and Kathleen Wynne from the vantage point of one of Canada's most astute and respected journalists.

The catastrophic runaway wildfires advancing through North America and other parts of the world are not unprecedented. Fires loomed large once human activity began to warm the climate in the 1820s, leading to an aggressive firefighting strategy that has left many of the continent’s forests too old and vulnerable to the fires that many tree species need to regenerate. Dark Days at Noon provides a broad history of wildfire in North America, from before European contact to the present, in the hopes that we may learn from how we managed fire in the past, and apply those lessons in the future. As people continue to move into forested landscapes to work, play, live, and ignite fires – intentionally or unintentionally – fire has begun to take its toll, burning entire towns, knocking out utilities, closing roads, and forcing the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. Fire management in North America requires attention and cooperation from both sides of the border, and many of the most significant fires have taken place at the boundary line. Despite a clear lack of urgency among political leaders, Edward Struzik argues that wildfire science needs to guide the future of fire management, and that those same leaders need to shape public perception accordingly. By explaining how society’s misguided response to fire has led to our current situation, Dark Days at Noon warns of what may happen in the future if we do not learn to live with fire as the continent’s Indigenous Peoples once did.

North America's Great Lakes country has experienced centuries of upheaval. Its landscapes are utterly changed from what they were five hundred years ago. The region's superabundant fish and wildlife and its magnificent forests and prairies astonished European newcomers who called it an earthly paradise but then ushered in an era of disease, warfare, resource depletion, and land development that transformed it forever. The Once and Future Great Lakes Country is a history of environmental change in the Great Lakes region, looking as far back as the last ice age, and also reflecting on modern trajectories of change, many of them positive. John Riley chronicles how the region serves as a continental crossroads, one that experienced massive declines in its wildlife and native plants in the centuries after European contact, and has begun to see increased nature protection and re-wilding in recent decades. Yet climate change, globalization, invasive species, and urban sprawl are today exerting new pressures on the region’s ecology. Covering a vast geography encompassing two Canadian provinces and nine American states, The Once and Future Great Lakes Country provides both a detailed ecological history and a broad panorama of this vast region. It blends the voices of early visitors with the hopes of citizens now.

In the tradition of Annie Dillard and John McPhee, writer and activist Ann Linnea interviews fourteen tree keepers about their life and work saving North America s...

In the turbulent period from 2018 to 2021, Canada saw a majority government reduced to minority standing, a political dynasty tainted by scandal, a neighbouring nation’s struggle to transfer power, and a paradigm-changing pandemic. Political insider L. Ian MacDonald, recognized for his clear-minded commentary on national and world political issues salient to all Canadians, guided his readers through it all. In this third collection of columns and articles from Policy magazine, the Montreal Gazette, and iPolitics, MacDonald focuses on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s uneven leadership at home, the Canada-US relationship with Donald Trump in the White House, and Ottawa’s management of health and economic policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chapters on prime ministers past and present, hot-button issues such as pipeline protests and the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement, and analysis of major elections show these standalone pieces as components of a cohesive body of political commentary. In these last four years, everything happened at high speed. Politics & Players ably navigates the terrain.

In 2007, a year of "planetary emergency", when global warming was widely recognized as the defining issue of era, the Billion Tree campaign came to symbolize the readiness of people everywhere to work to protect our climate and collective home. This publication can introduce but a fraction of the energy and results inspired by the Campaign. It is intended to convey the range of partners moved to action: from children to giant corporations, from women's groups to technocrats, dancers to diplomats, farmers to national governments.

The Africa Open DEAL and Africa’s Great Green Wall initiative is a first-of-its-kind collection of accurate, comprehensive, and harmonized African land use and land use change data. It provides a detailed panorama of land use and change across the entire continent and countries, captured through more than 300 000 sampling points taken from very high-resolution satellite imagery using FAO’s Collect Earth tools. This land report is a collective effort of more than 350 African experts. Using maps and statistics generated from the assessments, the report elaborates future prospects of land use change in a comprehensive and accessible format. Key findings indicate that land restoration for livelihoods, biodiversity and carbon capture is achievable in Africa, in view of multiple large-scale initiatives and countries’ commitments, including restoration targets of 100 million ha for GGW-Sahel, 100 million ha for the AFR100, both by 2030, and another 200 million ha for the Pan-African Agenda on Ecosystem Restoration. Successfully restored lands in the Sahel under GGW would have a profound positive effect on the climate of the whole region, potentially doubling the amount of rainfall or decreasing summer temperatures throughout much of Nnorthern Africa and as far as the Mediterranean. FAO and the AUC remain committed to working with member countries, African institutions and partners to leverage digital technologies to fast-track data on land use change and restoration efforts on the continent. Africa Open DEAL data are embedded within FAO’s Hand-in-Hand Initiative geo-spatial platform and are accessible to anyone through EarthMap.org.