Early in 2020, UC Santa Cruz Professor Karen Holl published “Primer of Ecological Restoration” through Island Press. Karen is a season veteran of ecological restoration with her boots (and her students embedded) on the ground in Latin American and Californian ecosystems. She has created an accessible book that explains foundational concepts with care while also highlighting more advanced topics for reflection.

Professor Holl has served as chair of the Environmental Studies Department at UCSC and is currently the faculty director of the Kenneth S. Norris Center for Natural History.  Karen jokes that she has been in some form or another writing this book for 25 years and her repertoire of authored and contributed articles shows off her knowledge and experience in forest ecology in Latin America and chaparral, grassland and riparian systems in California. She oversees a long-term tropical forest restoration study in southern Costa Rica and has worked with students and collaborators in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Panama. Karen advises numerous land management and conservation organizations in California and internationally on ecological restoration. She further works to advance efforts to conserve tropical forest, in part by training students from Latin American countries.

Island Press webpage for the book Primer of Ecological Restoration https://islandpress.org/primer-ecological-restoration 20% discount code ‘PRIMER’ to be used at checkout

Holl Restoration Ecology Lab http://www.holl-lab.com/

Professor Karen Holl on Google Scholar

Tree planting is not a simple solution by Karen D. Holl and Pedro H. S. Brancalion | Science 08 May 2020: Vol. 368, Issue 6491, pp. 580-581

Science Podcast “Making antibodies to treat coronavirus, and why planting trees won’t save the planet” Karen’s piece starts about minute 14:00.

Thanks for the Seattle band Dumb Thumbs for providing the theme song. You can find all of their tunes at dumbthumbs.bandcamp.com.

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