Heartwood - Rowan Reid

Heartwood: The Art and Science of Growing Trees for Conservation and Profit
by Rowan Reid

Published by Melbourne Books - September 2017 - Hardcover - 304pp - 26cm x 19cm

Heartwood challenges the entrenched view that when it comes to forests, one is either a conservationist or a profiteer. Forest scientist Rowan Reid draws on over twenty years of experience and study to offer a third way: where growing trees for profit can have a positive environmental impact.

He challenges the ideological poles that dominate the debate and offers a scientific view on how anyone with the necessary land and time can grow their own trees and profit from them while improving the soil, water and ecosystem.

Rowan also shares the personal story and family history that lead him to his revolutionary new approach. He shares his passion for native trees and provides the practical information that readers will need to understand and grow trees of their own.

Rowan Reid is a forester amongst farmers. He won the 2001 Australian Eureka Prize for Excellence in Environmental Education for his farmer course, The Australian Master TreeGrower, which he is still deliver around Australia and overseas (Timor Leste, Indonesia etc...) A Senior Lecturer at the University of Melbourne for 20 years, Rowan continues his academic teaching and research as a Senior Fellow of the university and the managing director of the non-for-profit Australian Agroforestry Foundation. As a farmer, he grows trees on his Bambra Agroforestry Farm, in the Otways, in Victoria, where he helped establish one of Australia's most successful Landcare groups, The Otway Agroforestry Network.