Two Billion Trees and Counting

Lest we think modern generations are the first to care about sustainability of natural resources, St. Catharines conservationist John Bacher sets the record straight.

The Guelph Mercury

It's hard to believe as one drives through the lush Ontario landscape that it was not always this way. That's why the photos in John Bacher's Two Billion Trees and Counting: The Legacy of Edmund Zavitz (Dundurn, 2011) come as such a shock to the reader.

Ancient Trees Forum (UK)

Informative on several levels, the book serves as both the warning and the voice of hope.

County Roads Magazine

…a fascinating presentation.

Flesherton Advance

In Two Billion Trees and Counting – The Legacy of Edmund Zavitz, John Bacher has given us a meticulously researched and very readable account of a courageous civil servant whose vision and strength of purpose would allow him and his supporters to turn the tide, tripling the forest cover in southern Ontario and starting the conservation authorities and county forest systems we know today.

Returnofthenative.com

Bacher provides a detailed look at a man whose lifelong efforts helped change the landscape of modern Ontario. Two Billion Trees and Counting is a reverential story of someone who was a family man, sportsman, photographer, and, above all, a naturalist.

Canada’s History

…a well-researched accounting of Zavitz’s work in a chronology that is easy to follow. I strongly suggest that his story should be written into the grade school history books in this province.

Toronto Star

John Bacher, an environmentalist and historian living in St. Catharines, Ont., has rescued Edmund Zavitz from undeserved obscurity.

Globe and Mail