ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe huge thanks to my editors at Outside magazine—Elizabeth
Hightower, Michael Roberts and Chris Keyes—who sent me down
this leafy errand in the first place, and to my editor Rob Kunzig at
National Geographic for helping me complete the journey. The
photographs of Lucas Foglia inspired me and I’m grateful to include
them in these pages.
Proving that time looking at and thinking about nature makes
people generous, numerous researchers, too many to list, opened up to
me their labs, minds, and field sites and withstood my endless
questions, sometimes in a language not their first. But I need to call
out a few for uncommon offerings of time and expertise: Juyoung
Lee, David Strayer, Adam Gazzaley, Art Kramer, Liisa Tyrvainen,
Kalevi Korpela, Deltcho Valtchanov, Jenny Roe, George Mitchell,
Ulrika Stigsdotter, Patrik Grahn, Matilda Van Den Bosch, Greg
Bratman, Marc Berman, Derrick Taff and his team, and Tan Le.
Special thanks to my Korean translator, Sepial Shim. I look forward
to following their work.
Private and institutional support were critical to this project. I’m
grateful to Virginia Jordan and Bill and Elaine French for their
support. Thanks to Brooke Hecht, Curt Meine and Gavin Van Horn at
the Center for Humans and Nature, my fiscal sponsor and a great
think tank. Thanks as well to Melissa Perry and the Department of
Environmental and Occupational Health at George Washington
University for sponsoring my professorial lectureship, which
provided free and extensive library access.
Writing a book didn’t just happen in neat nine-to-five increments
in my office. I often got away for intense bursts, and many people