Earth Beat, 27 May 2011. We go all arborophile, or tree-hugger, as we celebrate the joys of tree. What we use them for, how to climb them, how to chuck them out of an aeroplane… In-tree-gued? Listen to the show for more bad puns and all things tree.

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Treeverse
Ever wondered what it feels like to be a monkey? Well you could do worse than ask Brian French or Will Koomjian. Because these avid arborists recently crossed a forest without touching the ground. They told host Marnie Chesterton why it took five days to traverse – or Treeverse – a kilometre through an oak forest in Oregon.
Link - Ascending the Giants website.

Video - Treeverse trailer:

Tree-love
Diana Beresford-Kroeger has written a book - The Global Forest - about why we should love trees. She speaks to Marnie about it and about whether or not she’s a tree-hugger.

Blood, sweat and soil
As a response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Amsterdam city council created a plan to tackle the shortage of jobs in the city – twenty thousand people were employed to build a huge city forest - the Amsterdam Bos. Earth Beat producer Louise Stoddard talks to forester Pieter Rust.

Treebombing
Can we use the technology of war to sow something other than the seeds of destruction? Treebombing is an idea first developed by a former British RAF pilot called Jack Walters. Saplings grown in canisters are dropped from planes over areas in need of massive reforestation. Moshe Alamaro is the scientist at MIT who is continuing Jack’s work.

Keeping the dry forest
The Ayoreo are nomadic hunters that roam the massive dry forest of South America. Until the 1950s they had no contact with the outside world, but in the last few decades a few have been brought to villages by missionaries. They’re now making money by felling trees. Reporter Jean Friedman-Rudovsky went to meet some to find out how they’re doing this without destroying the forest.
Link - Time Magazine article on the Ayoreo by Jean Friedman-Rudovsky.

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