When I wrote a little post about trees earlier this year I was basically just talking through my hat. What I know about trees would fit on the back of a postage stamp. However, I just read a book by someone who knows lots more about trees than I do, and he surprisingly confirmed what I was saying. The Forest Underground by Tony Rinaudo has been heavily promoted in Christian circles and was named Australian Christian Book of the Year 2022 by Sparklit (the organisation which used to be known as the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge). Rinaudo also received a Right Livelihood Award (a kind of alternative Nobel Prize) in 2018 for his work on reforestation. In 1981 Tony, his wife Liz and their infant son headed off from Australia to join what was then known as the Sudan Interior Mission in Niger. After a few months language learning and cultural orientation they took up management of a farm school and associated Bible College in the town of Maradi. Along with his other respons
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson