Heartwood

Why do we assume trees can only be grown for either conservation or profit, but never both?

What if there was a way that landholders could profit from harvesting timber from the trees they plant for stock shelter, biodiversity, soil erosion control and beautification - whilst also helping control climate change?

Almost ten years since the initial publication of Heartwood, Rowan Reid returns to the fundamental challenge at the centre of his work - why must profit and conservation be at opposite ends of the forestry spectrum? In this new, updated and revised edition, Reid proposes a radical new approach to forestry and Landcare that challenges the idea that harvesting trees for timber is always bad for the environment. In fact, using real examples from his own farm and others around Australia and overseas, he proves that cutting down trees for firewood, furniture and building timbers can not only be good for the environment, but can also help pay the cost of large-scale landscape restoration. This book offers landholders, governments and the conservation movement a practical commercial solution to their environmental problems.

'Threats to our forest, our home, and possibly my own legacy, remain,' Reid writes. 'Fortunately, time, so often the enemy of life, enhances both forests and families.' In 2026, after almost ten years of increased climate catastrophe, extreme weather events and devastating fires, he writes: 'I hope our trees ... will provide some meaning and purpose to the lives of our grandchildren, if only as a refuge, a home, or a family story to which they can always return.'