Wait -- people steal trees?

In the spring of 2012, an 800 year-old red cedar was stolen from Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park, on Vancouver Island. That year, I started digging into tree poaching cases up and down the Pacific Northwest — I would eventually come face to face with tree poachers, park rangers, forensic wood specialists, the enigmatic residents of former logging communities, environmental activists, and Indigenous communities along the way.

Photo courtesy of Torrance Coste, the Wilderness Committee

Deep in the thickets of North America’s ancient woodland, timber poachers fell some of the last remaining old growth on our continent. Redwood, cedar, and Douglas fir trees are all victims of poaching: sold on the black market, they end up in our homes as furniture and firewood.

Tree Thieves: Crime And Survival In North America's Woods

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"Bourgon’s thoughtful approach and sharp investigative reporting will give environmentalists, policymakers, and park lovers a new perspective on the consequences of prioritizing endangered environments at the expense of the people who live in them. Nature lovers, take note."

Publishers Weekly
“A fascinating blend of history and boots-in-the-mud journalism, which manages to dig into ancient and thorny questions about who really owns wild land and who is allowed to live off it. This book does what all great books should: it leaves your mind broader, deeper, and more nuanced.”

Robert Moor, bestselling author of On Trails: An Exploration
“An astounding, essential read in our time of environmental and social crises. Tree Thieves exposes the astonishing realities of tree poaching and the dire consequences of excluding rural and Indigenous communities from preservation efforts.”

Kirk Wallace Johnson, author of The Feather Thief and The Fishermen and the Dragon
“Tree Thieves is a vividly written, fine piece of investigative reporting.”

The Los Angeles Review of Books
“From Sherwood Forest to the California redwoods to the Peruvian Amazon, Bourgon illuminates the violent conflicts over power, class, and identity that continue to shape and scar the forests we depend on.”

Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction

The 2022 Banff Mountain Book Competition Environmental Literature Award

- FINALIST -

The Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environment Book Award

- HONOURABLE MENTION -

The PEN America/Kenneth R. Galbraith Award for Non-fiction

- LONG-LISTED -

The BC and Yukon Book Prizes, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Award

- FINALIST -

The Columbia University/Nieman Foundation J. Anthony Lukas Award

- SHORT-LISTED -

Old-growth trees are invaluable and irreplaceable for both humans and wildlife, and are the oldest living things on earth. But the morality of tree poaching is complicated. In a story rooted in the materials of our everyday life, Tree Thieves contextualizes poaching as a form of deeply rooted protest, and a side effect of unemployment, deep poverty, and conservation practices that don’t include marginalized communities.

READ AN EXCERPT:

LIT HUB

On how I came to the subject

R E A D >
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

On the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s forensics lab

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THE TELEGRAPH

On a case of redwood burl poaching

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