About the Author

An ecologist by training, Gretchen Daily's work spans scientific research, teaching, public education, and working with leaders to advance practical approaches to environmental challenges. Daily's scientific research is on countryside biogeography and the future dynamics of biodiversity change; the scope for harmonizing biodiversity conservation and agriculture; quantifying the production and value of ecosystem services across landscapes; and new policy and finance mechanisms for integrating conservation and human development in major decisions. Daily cofounded the Natural Capital Project (naturalcapitalproject.org), an international effort focused on achieving this integration through research, practical tools, and policy-oriented demonstrations in contrasting places around the world. She works extensively with private landowners, economists, lawyers, business people, and government agencies to incorporate environmental issues into business practice and public policy. Daily received her B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and serves on the boards of the Stockholm Resilience Center and the Nature Conservancy. She has published over 200 scientific and popular articles, and her most recent books are The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable, with journalist Katherine Ellison, and Natural Capital: Theory and Practice of Mapping Ecosystem Services, coedited with several colleagues. Charles Katz Jr. has been an active photographer while pursuing a professional career as an attorney and business executive. He serves on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy of Washington and on the boards of advisers for the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, and Stanford's School of Earth Sciences. His previous publications in photography include Etched in Stone: The Geology of City of Rocks National Reserve and Castle Rocks State Park, Idaho, with text by Kevin R. Pogue.

Reviews

"As Daily points out, trees come in at least 60,000 varieties. Over their some 400 million year history, they have staked their claim in nearly every terrestrial environment and have enriched humankind in ways that simply can't be calculated."-- Shelflife "Daily, a conservation biologist, and her friend Katz visited the Skagit River region in Washington State, where Daily found consolation during the slow death of her father. The lyrical little book she has written in the aftermath is a window into the world of "the longest-lived organisms on Earth," a way of transcending pain through an appreciation of what's right in front of you. We can, she reminds us, read the past in a tree's rings, as we would read the pages of a book."-- New York Times Book Review "The Power of Trees is not a coffee-table piece, but rather a science-based title for the poetry section, with a beauty best appreciated up close - like the veins of a leaf, so similar to our own."-- Monterey County Weekly "This compact book has a powerful message -- just how integral trees are to the world's biological systems."-- The Seattle Times "The Power of Trees, a slim new volume from Trinity University Press, is dense with information, as dense as heartwood, which can be 'as hard as steel' in some species."-- The San Antonio Express-News "In one small volume, The Power of Trees delivers a treatise on these silent giants that satisfies tree-huggers and skeptical science types alike."-- Nature Magazine