Description

New Zealanders were advised in 1937 to “grow a ‘tree sense’ in the people from one end of the country to another”. The warning came as the country was facing dramatic hillside and river erosion and flooding caused by large-scale deforestation and the rapid transformation of the landscape to grasslands. That was more than 80 years ago. What is a tree sense, what might it include and how are we doing in 2019? Susette Goldsmith explores these questions drawing on her own research and a growing body of interdisciplinary studies that examine the significance of trees in maintaining the good health, well-being and heritage of twenty-first century Aotearoa New Zealand.

Susette Goldsmith has enjoyed a varied career as a teacher, a journalist and as an independent writer and editor of non-fiction. Her previous publications include The Gardenmakers of Taranaki; Tea: A Potted History of Tea in New Zealand and Suzy’s: A Coffee House History. Her research now focuses on natural heritage, and she is currently working on a book that presents the contemporary views of academics and non-academics, scientists, environmentalists and artists on a multi-faceted tree sense for New Zealand.