The Trees Are Speaking: Dispatches from the Salmon Forests

Review Quotes:

"[A] stunning and evocative search for the last remaining scraps of old-growth and ancient forest scattered across the North American continent."

"A profound and enlightening exploration of the critical connection between old growth forests and salmon habitat, offering a hopeful vision for their recovery and permanency."

"Lynda Mapes is one of the great truth-tellers of our time. In her voice, the trees speak eloquently and urgently about the calamitour destruction of America's great old forests and the promise in ancient and new forest healing practice. Like Silent Spring, like The End of Nature, this is an essential read."

Lynda V. Mapes covers environmental and Indigenous issues for the Seattle Times. She is author of six books, including most recently Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home, winner of the 2021 National Outdoor Book Award and the 2021 Washington State Book Award for nonfiction. Her journalism has earned numerous prestigious awards, including the international 2019 and 2012 Kavli gold award for science journalism from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also an associate of the Harvard Forest of Harvard University, in Petersham, MA.

"With a scientist's care and a poet's sense of wonder, Mapes artfully weaves the story of our continent's glorious, imperiled old-growth trees--and the countless organisms, from herring to humans, whose futures depend upon their survival."

"Life on earth is intricately entwined with forests. In this book Mapes eloquently tells the story about both the gifts of the forest and the challenges it faces."

"Lynda Mapes brings you on a beautiful journey into the lush old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, sharing the health benefits of trees, and inviting readers to listen and learn from their story, to understand how essential these forests are to our very survival."

"Lynda's elegant poetry of the old forests of North America stirs in our souls our deep connections to these majestic ecosystems. But more than this, she delivers a clarion call to protect the remaining old forests from completely going extinct from human exploitation. This book will surely move us to act for the trees."

"The balance of beauty and science found in Mapes' writing is certain to leave readers with a desire to act."

"The Trees are Speaking is supported by a host of researchers and environmental activists who have made incredible discoveries about the role of old-growth trees, alive and dead."

"The enlightening ecological discussions highlight the delicate balancing acts that undergird thriving forests, and the profiles provide reason for optimism. Nature lovers will be galvanized to stand up for more robust forest protections."

"The prose is crisp and engrossing, and the book includes dozens of photographs of forests and the people working to protect them. . . . The Trees Are Speaking is a timely survey of old-growth forests that are essential to North America's heritage and key to survival."

"[S]uperb . . . . Mapes's strength lies in her ability to combine journalistic insight with ethical reflection. Her prose is clear and unsentimental, balancing data with empathy. She resists nostalgia and avoids the romantic impulse to treat forests as untouched refuges. Instead, she portrays them as dynamic, altered systems with deep histories of human presence, whose recovery depends on conscious responsibility. In presenting listening as a disciplined form of attention - anchored in observation, humility, and accountability - Mapes shifts environmental reporting from description to relationship, from witnessing to ethical participation."

"In an era of vanishing flora, fauna, and fungi, Mapes leads readers to an understanding that all things are connected. . . . Highly recommended."

A call to rethink our relationship with forests

Ancient and carbon-rich, old-growth forests play an irreplaceable role in the environment. Their complex ecosystems clean the air, purify the water, cool the planet, and teem with life. In a time of climate catastrophe, old-growth and other natural forests face existential threats caused by humans--and their survival is crucial to ours.

In a bicoastal journey, environmental journalist Lynda V. Mapes connects the present and future of Pacific Northwest forests to the hard-logged legacy forests of the northeastern United States. Beginning in Oregon and Washington, where old growth supports, and is supported by, the region's salmon, we meet Jerry Franklin, who led scientists in recognizing and studying the distinctiveness of these majestic spaces. From there, we journey to Vancouver Island, where Indigenous activists and scientists strive to preserve the health of Nuu-chah-nulth traditional homelands amid continued clearcutting. On the East Coast, we see the corduroy patterns of lands that have been logged for generations, leaving industrial carnage along formerly life-filled waterways. Mapes interviews Penobscot elders and scientists whose new practices are restoring the fish runs, as well as loggers using new technologies to harvest more sustainably.

With vibrant storytelling supported by science and traditional ecological knowledge, Mapes invites readers to understand the world where trees are kin, not commodities. The Trees Are Speaking is essential reading for those with a deep interest in environmental stewardship, Indigenous land rights, and the urgent challenges posed by climate change.

Review Citations:

• Choice 02/01/2026 (EAN 9780295753676, Hardcover)
• Booklist 04/01/2025 pg. 10 (EAN 9780295753676, Hardcover)
• Publishers Weekly 04/14/2025 (EAN 9780295753676, Hardcover)
• Shelf Awareness 04/19/2025 (EAN 9780295753676, Hardcover)
• Foreword 04/21/2025 (EAN 9780295753676, Hardcover)

Contributor Bio:Mapes, Lynda V
Lynda Mapes is a journalist who covers environmental and Indigenous issues for the Seattle Times. Her books include The Trees are Speaking (Washington, 2024), Witness Tree: Seasons of Change with a Century-Old Oak (Washington, 2019), Orca: Shared Waters, Shared Home (Mountaineers, 2021), Elwha: A River Reborn (Mountaineers, 2013), and Breaking Ground: The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and the Unearthing of Tse-whit-zen Village (Washington, 2009).