Chapter 1. What Have We Got to Lose?

"All over the world, there lingers on the memory of a giant tree, the primal tree, rising up from the center of the Earth to the heavens and ordering the universe around it. It united the three worlds: its roots plunged down into subterranean abysses, its loftiest branches touched the empyrean. Thanks to the Tree, it became possible to breathe the air; to all the creatures that then appeared on Earth it dispensed its fruit, ripened by the sun and nourished by the water which it drew from the soil. From the sky it attracted the lightning from which man made fire and, beckoning skyward, where clouds gathered around its crown, it bade the life-giving rains to fall. The Tree was the source of all life, and of all regeneration." Jacques Brosse, The Courier

Chapter 2. A Short History of Assaults

"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks." Gregory Bateson, 1976

Chapter 3. Amazonia: The Last Frontier?

"If the Amazon forest disappears, it is likely that all the other tropical forests of the planet will have preceded it over the horizon. If any tropical forest in the world is redeemable, on the other hand, it is the Amazonian forest--the world\'s largest and least ravaged and most important." Roger D. Stone, Dreams of Amazonia

Chapter 4. Other Tropical Forests Under Siege

"All the evidence suggests that nature consists of perfectly attuned linkages stretching out of our sight--and out of our understanding--in all directions. Yet, we imagine we can destroy this forest and build another." David Kelly and Gary Braasch, Secrets of the Old Growth Forest

Chapter 5. What Can Governments Do?

"Restoring, conserving, protecting natural resources: these are all essential if future generations are to have a chance to meet their needs. But if more is not done to meet the needs of those here today--the majority of humanity, pushed into over-farming, over-grazing, over-cutting, even over-populating, as they look to their children for extra hands to work and some comfort in the future--if more is not done for these people, the earth will be not better off." Linda Starke, Signs of Hope: Working towards Our Common Future

Chapter 6: The Forests\' Volunteer Protectors

"Most of the great environmental struggles will be either won or lost in the 1990s and . . . by the next century it will be too late to act." Thomas E. Lovejoy, Smithsonian Institution

Chapter 7: What Can You Do?

"Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." H.G. Wells

Epilogue: Last Stand for North America\'s Old-Growth Forests

"What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. As Gandhi said, \'An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.\'" Chris Maser, Forest Primeval

"The Pacific forest is a triumph of life over adversity." Catherine Caufield, "The Ancient Forest"

Appendix 1: Organizations that Can Help

Appendix 2: Forests and Genetic Diversity

Glossary