One Shot: Trees as Our Last Chance for Survival

by John Leary

Overview

Over the last forty years, entire countries have been stripped of a primary natural resource: trees. Most of this deforestation occurred to make room for agriculture. Yet, in the coming decade, there will be nearly two billion undernourished people. There is a constant pressure to trade more forests for food. ONE Shot: Trees as Our Last Chance for Survival provides a compelling look at the state of the world’s agriculture and its evolving impact on people and the environment. ONE Shot takes readers on an evolving journey from the peanut fields of Africa to the corn fields of America; connecting seven of the world’s most pressing challenges to farming practices, and offering the revival of forest gardens as a core agricultural solution.

Drawing on fifteen years of humanitarian work with communities on the verge of collapse, John Leary conveys how restoring agricultural lands with a diverse combination of trees and crops is the answer to reversing desertification, water scarcity, hunger, poverty, climate change and forced migration. In the coming decades, we have One Shot to work together to rebuild our dying food systems and ecosystems. Discover how trees are our last chance for survival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780998784502
Publisher:	Trees for the Future
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	246
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

John Leary is the Executive Director of Trees for the Future where he is focused on helping end hunger and extreme poverty for rural African farmers, through the revival of the forest garden. John has extensive experience living among the rural poor in Sub-Saharan Africa and deep knowledge of international agricultural development. He speaks three languages and has lived and worked in thirteen developing countries. John has dedicated his life to creating innovative training approaches that empower farmers to rise out of poverty.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: A Tale of Five Fathers xiii

PART I ONE SHOT—Time is running out

Chapter 1: Yesterday’s Promise 3

Chapter 2: Tomorrow’s Uncertainty 15

PART I I ONE WORD—Trees

Chapter 3: Hooves and Axes Break the Land—Deforestation/Desertification 27

Chapter 4: Hyde’s Seed/Jekyll’s Soil—Transformation of Seeds/Loss of Soil 39

Chapter 5: Too Little, Too Much, Too Dirty—Water 57

Chapter 6: Written in Stone—Resource Depletion/Biodiversity Loss 75

Chapter 7: The Hunger Bar—Hunger, Poverty and Health 91

Chapter 8: Weather or Not—Climate Change 109

Chapter 9: Greener Grass—Emigration 127

PART I I I ONE WORLD—Local Changes with Global Impacts

Chapter 10: Spare Some Change? 149

Chapter 11: The Guilded Age 163

End Note References 177