Green Complements Gray: Saving Forests, Protecting Water Quality

• Author: G. Tracy Mehan III
• Pages: 220-224

220 Best of the Books: Ref‌lections on Recent Literature

Green Complements Gray:

Saving Forests,

Protecting Water Quality

By G. Tracy Mehan III

Natural Infras tructure : Investing in Forested Landscape s for

Source Water Protectio n in the United States , edited by Todd

Gartner, James Mulligan, Rowan Sch midt, and John Gunn. World

Resources Institute. 132 pages.

Natural and Engine ered Solutions

for Drinkin g Water Supplies : Lessons

From the Northeastern United States

and Directions f or Global Watershed

Management, edited by Emily Alcott, Mark

S. Ashton, and Bradford S. Gentry. CRC

Press. 303 pages.

From the May/ June 2014 issue of

The Environmental F orum.

Lawyer a nd environmental historian Eric

Rutkow opens his engrossing 2012 book

American Canopy: Trees, Forests , and the

Making of a Nation noting that “there is noth-

ing else in nature quite as helpful to man as

a tree.” It is a universal building material and

an essential source of fuel for millenia, up to

and including present uses of woody biomass.

Even in this digital age, you are holding in your

hands the pulp of trees, “an u nsung pillar of

advanced society.” How is that paper-free envi-

ronment working out for you?

Unfortunately, observes Rutkow, “Forests

are cordoned o in carefully delimited regions,