Seeing the Forest Among the Trees is a personal statement, reflecting Herb Hammond’s love and knowledge of the forest and his disillusionment with current forestry practices. It presents a wide ranging discussion of many aspects of forests—such as ecology, economics, politics, and spiritual values—and examines these issues in a format readily understandable to the lay reader. Essentially a forest ecology text, it contains basic information about forests, not just as groups of trees, but as a living whole...as a complex web of interacting organisms.

Herb Hammond’s concept of wholistic forest use stems from a belief that the forest and all its inhabitants—the environment and everything dependent on it for survival—must be viewed as one unit, and that a single resource cannot be exploited at the risk of endangering the others. “Wholistic forest use puts the forest back on center stage and moves human beings to a supporting role,” Hammond says. “The key priorities of this approach are first, protect the whole forest. Second, ensure balanced uses across the forest landscape. Any use must be ecologically responsible, maintaining the integrity of the whole forest in the short and long term.”