Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration, and Ultimate Food Security, by Masanobu Fukuoka
You may be familiar with the groundbreaking The One-Straw Revolution, published in 1975, but what happened next? Sowing Seeds in the Desert was Masanobu Fukuoka’s last gift to us, full of the wisdom he gathered after 65 years of working with the land.
Posted: September 12, 2026
In tribute to Wendell Berry, our recommended read is The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry. Selected and introduced by Paul Kingsnorth, this collection brings together Berry’s enduring reflections on land, community, agriculture, ecology, and the responsibilities of living well within the natural world.
Posted: September 5, 2026
This week’s recommended read is Smokescreen: Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and Our Climate, by Chad Hanson, PhD — a forest and fire ecologist and one of the featured guest speakers in Hart Hagan’s Wildfires: Mythology vs. Reality course.
Chad joins us on October 8 to share his research on wildfire, forest management, and post-fire ecology.
Posted: August 29, 2026
Everyone at Bio4Climate is familiar with Judith Schwartz’s groundbreaking journeys into our relationships with other creatures and how we could save each other.
Full of human stories and animal relationships with a good topping of ecorestoration science.
Posted: August 22, 2026
Judith D. Schwartz is a Bio4Climate advisor whose work traces how communities are restoring degraded land by working with, rather than against, natural systems. In The Reindeer Chronicles, she travels from China’s Loess Plateau to Norway’s reindeer-herding communities and the deserts of the Middle East, gathering stories of regeneration that echo the hopeful, practical spirit behind Bio4Climate’s own work.
Judith has presented at several Bio4Climate events, sharing these same stories of ecological repair.
Posted: August 22, 2026
Andy Merrifield’s memoir follows a journey through rural France in the company of a donkey named Gribouille, finding in the animal’s quiet, deliberate nature a lesson in patience and presence.
It’s a fitting companion to this week’s Featured Creature calling attention to the fight to protect Kachana Station’s wild donkeys and how there is so much more to learn from these and other animals.
Posted: August 22, 2026
Ecologist Simon Mustoe argues that animals aren’t just beneficiaries of a healthy planet — they’re the engineers of it, from coral reefs to rainforests to the open ocean.
Wildlife in the Balance lays out how restoring animal populations restores ecosystem function, a case that lines up closely with Bio4Climate’s own view of wildlife as a partner in ecosystem restoration, not just something to protect.
Posted: August 22, 2026
“Prepare to be enchanted! While humans go about their workaday lives, there is a secret world of well-dressed fairies flitting about in fragile fashions that would take your breath away – …fashioned wholly from feathers, flower petals, shells, seeds, and other materials from nature”
I discovered this book many years ago and was indeed enchanted by the fun, fantasy and beauty of nature in these fashion creations. Maybe you will have some fun gathering elements on your next walk outside to make your own creations and imagine the secret fairy world at play.
Send us a picture if you do! Beck
Posted: August 15, 2026
In 1977, Wangari Muta Maathai, “Mama Miti” founded the Green Belt Movement, an African grassroots organization that empowered people to mobilize and combat deforestation, soil erosion, and environmental degradation.
More than 30 million trees have been planted throughout Mama Miti’s native Kenya, and in 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. With each page turned, children will realize their own ability to positively impact the future.
Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai, by Claire A. Nivola
With an endorsement by Bill McKibben, Bio4Climate supporter Claire Nivola tells the story of Wangari Maathai and the reforestation movement she started in Kenya. The book also helps kids understand what happens to the planet as a result of deforestation.
Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa, by Jeanette Winter
From 9 seedlings in her backyard, to a grassroots movement across Africa, Wangari Matthai proved that one committed individual can create and inspire great change.
At age 9, German environmentalist Felix Finkbeiner was inspired by Kenyan political activist Wangari Matthai to begin a tree planting campaign. We encourage you to consider purchasing the following books as inspiration for the young environmentalists in your life.
Posted: July 31, 2026
This Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times bestseller takes a new approach to exploring how sustainability and human survival are inseparable.
Powers’ fictional story weaves together multiple characters’ lives, using personal struggles, realizations, and choices to explore how their lives become intertwined with a “hidden” world of trees and revealing the consequences of ignoring and defending the living systems that sustain life on our planet.
Posted: July 24, 2026
Did Ellie’s Featured Creature inspire you to think about the wild boar’s descendant, the pig? If so, Charlotte’s Web is a sentimental favorite to revisit! You can buy a copy of the Newberry award-winning title from the Bio4Climate Bookshop storefront and support Bio4Climate at the same time. We receive 10% of any book sales!
Posted: July 17, 2026
If you enjoyed Suzanne Simard’s Finding the Mother Tree, you’ll love her new work, When the Forest Breathes. Simard takes us deeper into how forests renew themselves through cycles of death and regrowth, and how much we still have to learn from Indigenous forest stewardship. It’s the kind of book that makes you see a rotting log not as an ending, but as the quiet start of something new.
Order today from the Bio4Climate Bookshop storefront. We receive a portion of all book sales.
Posted: July 17, 2026
The 2nd Annual Bio4Climate Miniforest Summit is rapidly approaching. We’re fortunate to have Ethan Tapper, author of How to Love a Forest: The Bittersweet Work of Tending a Changing World as one of our keynote speakers at our upcoming Miniforest Summit in July. Reading his book now is a great way to prepare for the conversations to be held online and during our miniforest bus tour.
A forest, Tapper writes, is degraded both by those who do too much and by those who do nothing. His book charts a harder path between treating nature as a commodity and leaving it untouched, showing how the bittersweet act of both loving trees and felling them can be a true expression of compassion.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: June 27, 2026
Fungi Grow, by Maria Gianferrari
Help the 4–8 year-olds in your life learn about how fungi grow above and below ground!
Fungi Grow also explains to young readers the incredible underground fungal network described in this week’s Featured Creature!
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: June 19, 2026
Over in the Mangroves by Jyoti Rajan Gopal
It’s never too early to start teaching kids about mangroves and the interconnected world within them. This interactive tale inspired by a classic nursery rhyme takes readers along with forest animals as they fish, swim, dig, and bask before a storm sends them seeking shelter in the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest.
Posted: June 12, 2026
Part of Bio4Climate’s core mission is to educate and share educational resources that help our community learn about and engage with the natural world. Our Bookshop storefront is a growing list of titles recommended by our experts and other climate leaders, including books from our courses. We also have a growing list of titles for kids to help educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of climate advocates.
Check back often as we are always adding titles. We also recommend books each week at the end of this Featured Creature newsletter. Purchasing from our storefront is another way you can support Bio4Climate. We receive a portion of the sale at no additional cost to you.
Posted: June 12, 2026
“Thinking Like Water” filmmaker Renea Roberts shares her perspective on this week’s read.
As the filmmaker for the docuseries Thinking Like Water, I’ve referenced this book so many times! Bill Zeedyk and Van Clothier’s contribution to riparian restoration continues to be a vital force giving practical advice as well as a scientific basis for the watershed restoration techniques described within. Loaded with pictures, charts, graphs, worksheets and more…it’ll be one you’ll reference back to too!
— Renea Roberts
Check out the Bio4Climate Bookshop
Part of Bio4Climate’s core mission is to educate and share educational resources that help our community learn about and engage with the natural world. Our Bookshop storefront is a growing list of titles recommended by our experts and other climate leaders, including books from our courses. We also have a growing list of titles for kids to help educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of climate advocates.
Check back often as we are always adding titles. We also recommend books each week at the end of this Featured Creature newsletter. Purchasing from our storefront is another way you can support Bio4Climate. We receive a portion of the sale at no additional cost to you.
Posted: June 5, 2026
Protest: Respect It, Defend It, Use It by Annie Leonard and Andre Carothers Beck Mordini finds hope and inspiration in Annie Leonard and Andre Carothers’ new book—Protest: Respect It, Defend It, Use It. The book is a colorful collection of 42 protest movements from around the world, from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to 2025’s No Kings protests. Beck reflects: “I realized that I need this book, I need to be able to open a page and see that the voice of the people does matter. That the most important advances in society were not accomplished by wars or politicians, but started with ordinary voices joining together. It helps me to carry on knowing that these victories were not immediate and their impact often not recognized until decades later. So, we too carry on.”
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: May 29, 2026
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster. Brad Lancaster teaches us how to conceptualize, design, and implement life-enhancing water-, sun-, wind-, and shade-harvesting systems for our homes, landscapes, and communities. He shows us how to assess our on-site resources and how to maximize their potential, and learn the guiding principles for an integrated, multi-functional plan specific to individual needs.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: May 22, 2026
Homesick for a World Unknown by Miriam Horn
Bio4Climate supporter Ellen Maidman-Tanner sent us her glowing recommendation of Horn’s book:
“This book is right up there with The Discovery of Nature about Alexander von Humboldt. George Schaller taught Jane Goodall before she went into Gombe. He is said to have saved more animals, many apex predators, than anyone else ever has or ever will. I am totally entranced with it!”
Posted: May 15, 2026
Part of Bio4Climate’s core mission is to educate and share educational resources that help our community learn about and engage with the natural world. Our Bookshop storefront is a growing list of titles recommended by our experts and other climate leaders, including books from our courses. We also have a growing list of titles for kids to help educate, inspire, and motivate the next generation of climate advocates.
Check back often as we are always adding titles. We also recommend books each week at the end of this Featured Creature newsletter. Purchasing from our storefront is another way you can support Bio4Climate. We receive a portion of the sale at no additional cost to you.
Posted: May 15, 2026
Instead of a single title, this week we offer you 12 titles that explore the legacy of Earth Month. From early priorities of clean air, clean water, and clean land to our proximate relationships with nature, these titles help us explore the deeper questions of restoration, resilience, and our place within living systems.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: April 16, 2026
A Journey Through the Hidden Wonders that Bring Our Planet to Life
Ferris Jabr
JIm Laurie’s Symbiosis Team dove even deeper into the emerging science on Earth as a living organism. From the book, “Life does not merely exist on Earth—life is Earth. We have as much reason to regard our planet as a living entity as we do ourselves—a truth no longer substantiated by intuition alone, nor by one man’s vision, but by a preponderance of scientific evidence.”
We are not merely passengers on Earth and that we have it within our abilities to help restore and protect the beauty our planet has created over millions of years.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: April 11, 2026
by Harriet Rix
Jim Laurie’s current course, The Emergent Intelligence of Trees is digging deep into this detailed exploration of trees. Course participants share that this is not a quick read, as the information is dense, but well worth taking the time to explore. Rix invites us to take part in a quiet conversation that’s been happening for millennia. She doesn’t just describe trees, she seems to hear them, exploring their stories of resilience and slow, deliverable genius. She reminds us that wisdom doesn’t hurry, it grows like trees. Ring by ring, leaf by leaf.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: April 4, 2026
Life
The Wild Wonders of Biodiversity
By Jennifer N R Smith with contributions from Joanna Bagniewska
The seasonal transition from winter to spring is an ideal time to introduce the wonders of biodiversity to the next generation of climate advocates.
Using stunning illustrations printed in eco-friendly HUV ink, Life highlights the importance of protecting and supporting biodiversity in our natural world and looks at ways that we can help to save our planet’s wildlife.
Life is part of a larger series by author Jennifer Smith that introduces young people to the fascinating elements that make our planet unique and irreplaceable.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: March 20, 2026
By Ethan Tapper
You don’t have to hear author Ethan Tapper at the Rhode Island Land & Water Summit to be inspired by his exploration of what it means to live in a time when ecosystems are in retreat and extinctions rattle the bones of the earth. How do we respond to the harmful legacies of the past? How do we use our species’ incredible power to heal rather than to harm?
Tapper walks us through the fragile and resilient community that is a forest. He introduces us to wolf trees and spring ephemerals, and to the mysterious creatures of the rhizosphere and the necrosphere. He helps us reimagine what forests are and what it means to care for them.
Tapper argues that the actions we must take to protect ecosystems are often counterintuitive, uncomfortable, even heartbreaking. With striking prose, he shows how bittersweet acts–like loving deer and hunting them, loving trees and felling them–can be expressions of compassion. Tapper weaves a new land ethic for the modern world, reminding us that what is simple is rarely true, and what is necessary is rarely easy.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: March 13, 2026
If you are looking to deepen your appreciation for the quiet intelligence and grandeur of trees and forests, then Trees: An Illustrated Celebration by Kelsey Oseid is a remarkable place to begin.
This beautifully illustrated volume blends art and science to reveal why trees are among the most essential life forms on Earth. From the oldest living organisms to vast forest biomes that cover one-third of the planet, Oseid invites readers to see trees not merely as background scenery, but as dynamic ecological partners. She highlights their role in producing oxygen, storing carbon, supporting biodiversity, and even communicating through underground fungal networks.
What makes this book especially compelling is its balance of elegance and insight. Striking naturalistic artwork accompanies engaging scientific facts from the microscopic scale of root hairs to the cosmic stories encoded in tree rings. Mangroves, redwoods, baobabs, and dragon trees all come alive in vivid detail.
Accessible yet substantive, this book is both a visual celebration and a scientific introduction, ideal for anyone seeking to better understand the living architecture of our planet.
This is one of two books that will be used in Jim Laurie’s upcoming course Emergent Intelligence of Trees
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: March 7, 2026
Errata: Last week, we inadvertently misidentified the author of A Forest Journey. John Perlin is the correct author of this book. We encourage you to take a trip with John through the history of forests!
A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization By John Perlin
At first glance, you might think this is “just” a book about trees. But it is so much more! John Perlin shares the history of human civilization as it relates to forests. From commerce to conquest, every chapter of our history has been played out in relation to forests. I first encountered John during our GBH talk and was fascinated to discover that our complex relationship with nature can be traced as far back as the epic tale Gilgamesh from 2100 BC. This reprint of Perlin’s 1989 book by Patagonia is full of stunning full-color pictures and was recently updated to include climate change and the biotic pump.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you. View the Bio4Climate Bookshop for more books.
Posted: February 28, 2026
Beck Mordini, Bio4Climate’s executive director shares her recommendation for a book that is special to her both in honor of Valentine’s Day and as a tribute to the passing of our beloved co-founder and longtime Executive Director, Adam Sacks.
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship By Catherine Raven
From the preface:
“I realized that a fox, like a rainbow and every other gift from Nature had an intrinsic value that was quite independent of its longevity. After that, whenever I questioned devoting so much time to an animal whose lifespan barely exceeded the blink of an eye I remembered rainbows.”
It would be a disservice to describe this as a book about nature, it is rather a novel about two creatures from different worlds learning to see and appreciate each other. It is a poetic telling of deep seeing as each clump of sedge becomes a home, a food source, a hindrance to finding food or a cover for not becoming food. It is a gentle and patient tale of what it takes to truly know another, and in that knowing to discover love. And finally a story of how we are changed by our relationships.
This isn’t a book you rush to discover the ending, but rather a book you settle into and carry within you as you step back out into your own natural spaces.
By purchasing this title through the link provided above, you’ll continue to support Bio4Climate. We are an affiliate partner of Bookshop.org and receive a portion of the sales price at no additional cost to you.
Posted: February 20, 2026
This week’s book recommendation comes from Jonas Davulis, a member of the Symbiosis Team and active participant in Bio4Climate courses and events. His pick is Becoming Earth: A Journey Through the Hidden Wonders That Bring Our Planet to Life by Ferris Jabr.
“Becoming Earth is the story of how Earth’s inhabitants from microbes to trees have made this rock into the living planet we know today! I read this book with many others here at Bio4Climate last winter as the main dish to Jim Laurie’s Biodiversity #12 course, and I still find myself referencing it whenever I’m talking about the life that sustains us.
Starting from the ground up, you’ll travel deep through the Earth where there’s microbes that eat metal. Step in elephant tracks that become living ponds. And watch the author as they bring back life to their desolate suburban lot. From there you’ll swim through clouds of plankton, forests of kelp, and hordes of plastic! As you catch your breath with some air microbes made, you’ll see the rekindling of indigenous fires on the landscape, and look towards a new sustainable future.
If there’s one thing you’ll take-away, it’s that: ‘We and other living creatures are more than inhabitants of earth; we are earth – an outgrowth of its physical structure and an engine of its global cycles. Earth and its creatures are so closely intertwined that we can think of them as one.’ Page: xiv” – Jonas Davulis
Posted: January 17, 2026
“This holiday season, I received a book that sharpened something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately—not the restoration of a single site or ecosystem, but the restoration of movement. Movement through the in-between places, and through the ecological and social nodes that form living corridors. It deepened my urgency around noticing how species, water, and energy move through human-dominated landscapes, the barriers we’ve built into them, and what that means for restoration.
From the Millpond to the Sea: One River, Three Tributaries, Four Dams by Akiko Busch centers on the Hudson River watershed and its many dams. Busch traces how these structures restrict biodiversity, block fish migration, warm water, and trap sediment, reshaping rivers over time. The book also made me reflect on how other species create barriers differently: when beavers build dams, they don’t simply stop movement, but create conditions that allow life to self-organize. Even when a beaver dam eventually fails, the pond it created will become a forest—supporting diverse life cycles along the way.
After sharing the book with our restoration biologist, Jim Laurie, he asked a simple question that stayed with me: “What do you want the Hudson River to become?” It made me wonder what the closest waterbody to my own home might want to become. I hope it inspires you to ask the same question.” -Alexandra Ionescu
Posted: January 3, 2026
If you are looking for a good book to read this holiday season, I recommend Finding the Mother Tree. Suzanne Simard grew up in the gigantic forests of British Columbia and later became a forestry scientist who turned our paradigms about healthy forests upside down.
This book is also a love story. Suzanne Simard has been greatly saddened by the loss of so many forests due to clear cutting and increasing fires in a warming world. She now spends much of her time working with First Nations Tribes on the Canadian West Coast, teaching future forestry students how to regenerate forests as well as sustainably harvest.
Finding the Mother Tree has elaborate sources, pictures, and notes. It was featured and very well received in one of our Biodiversity Deep Dive courses.
Posted: December 27, 2025
You might think this is a book about trees, but it is more accurately the history of human civilization as it relates to forests. From commerce to conquest, every chapter of our history has been played out in relation to forests. I first encountered John Perlin during our GBH talk and was fascinated that our complex relationship with nature can be traced as far back as the epic tale Gilgamesh from 2100 BC. The reprint of Perlin’s 1989 book by Patagonia was not only updated to include climate change and the biotic pump, but is full of stunning full-color pictures. It makes a beautiful gift and an enjoyable read for yourself. – Beck Mordini
Posted: December 20, 2025
