Erdőidő
Time of Forests

Summary/Abstract: Jaboury Ghazoul’s volume Forests was published in Oxford University Press's prestigious Very Short Introductions series. The author, specialized in ecology offers an interesting insight into the ecology of forests from a multitude of perspectives. The volume discusses the difficulties in giving a precise definition of what a forest is – what kind of plants and in what density can be considered to form a forest. The conclusion of the author which is valid throughout the book is that our cultures frame how we define and how we relate to forests. A historical overview of forest ecology that takes the reader back into geological periods shows in the volume the variations that occurred in the way plants inhabited the planet. Another chapter discusses the factors that disrupt the lives of forests – showing that even without human intervention forests can have a history of transformations of their own. In addition to this, in the era of the anthropocene forests are radically transformed by logging activities, by constructions, by commercial interests. These aspects are discussed in connection with possible scripts of future, in the context of climate change and human activity. The review article presents Ghazoul’s book from a cultural perspective, in its relation to the themes discussed in Korunk’s thematic issue about Trees in a posthumanist and ecocritical approach.

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