From the Journal of Political Ecology, Vol. 8Trees At Risk: Reclaiming an Urban Forest, by Evelyn Herwitz. Worcester, MA: Chandler House Press, Inc (2001), iv, 200 pp.Reviewed by Brent Evans and Carolyn Chipman Evans, Cibolo Nature Center, Boerne, TXEvelyn Herwitz has contributed a major historical work with a strong environmental message in Trees At Risk: Reclaiming an Urban Forest. The City of Worcester, MA serves as the focal point for this evolving story of grassroots negligence and activism. The author is adept at uncovering the societal and industrial forces that carved a city out of the wilderness, and sometimes molded a little of the wilderness back into the city.An ambitious work, the book is a 200-page treasure with 16 pages of color photos, and numerous illustrations throughout. Nature lovers will also appreciate the occasional botanical information and illustrations of native trees.Trees At Risk is both a hopeful blueprint and a cautionary tale of what cities can do to protect and promote their urban forests, and what can happen if they do not. Ms. Herwitz is a skilled historian, but also a masterful wordsmith. For example: On a chill December afternoon when the hardwoods stand barren, their fallen leaves but sodden dregs of autumn's gold, Worcester's hues are clay and stone. Viewed from Mount St. James, once home to native Nipmucs, now to the College of the Holy Cross, the muted city melds with the dun-colored woodlands of surrounding hills - its red-brick factory buildings and cement offices crowding the valley floor, a glass-and-steel bank tower mirroring winter's slate sky, white and frown and beige three-deckers climbing rocky hillsides, the charcoal-gray swath of I-290snaking over streets.Come spring, though, there is green. First, a fine misting of chartreuse as the weeping willows unfurl their buds, then a wash of emerald as the sugar and Norway maples, the ashes, oaks and ginkgoes spread their leaves, until Worcester's swarthy face is softened by a sylvan veil. A city of aging factories and dreams of renewal, of ethnic pride and paternalism, of grit, ingenuity and determination, Worcester is also a city of trees.Her work reaches far beyond Worcester though, in its lessons and implications. She looks at the national picture of demising urban forests. Statistics abound: the average life of a city tree is only 32 years - 13 if planted downtown - far short of the 150-year average life span of trees in rural settings. What's more, city tree planting and maintenance budgets have been slashed nationwide, and urban parks are also at risk. The story of the threat to Worcester's trees is the story of the relationship between Americans and nature - at times exploitative, at times romantic, and occasionally reverent. She gives a clear history of the local native landscape, and its gradual civilization. And, throughout the work she provides wonderful snippets of historical significance, like the quote from Genesis that English settlers liked to use to justify their taking of Native land: Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it. But, the settlers proved far more accomplished at subduing than replenishing, as have their offspring, even to this day.The sad history of the wasting of trees, deforestation, and industrial transformation are detailed, as are early conservation efforts in the mid-eighteenth century, and the first use ofpublic funds for tree planting, a century later. She follows the trend of the romantic ideal of pastoral land in rural cemetery design, through to the Greening or Worcester in 1885 with the planting of 500 trees by the Worcester Grange.The book traces the urban parks movement, and the inevitable growing demand for green space as the city expanded. Then, it chronicles the turn of the century, and the theme of Wilderness Squandered. As the Worcester case study continues, Ms. Herwitz examined politics, the railroad, the Hurricane of 38, the Great Depression, ethnic politics