'Into the Woods'

Into the Woods is a deft and multi-layered exploration of the Tasmanian forestry debate. Extensively researched, it is also Anna Krien’s own story, and the richer for it. Sleeping at blockades, posing hard questions to retired politicians and drinking with loggers takes courage, and there is a freshness in Krien’s prose that brings an open mind and an open heart to one of the vexed questions in Australian environmental policy. Her talent and sensibility make this an intimate psychological study of people, their motivations and their relationship with nature – and a riveting read.

If a tree falls in a forest and there is no-one there to hear it, does it make a sound? The question is brought to mind reading Into the Woods, a timely, relevant and comprehensive profile of a deeply corrosive subject with ramifications for the country as a whole.

Anna Krien takes us on a personal adventure of investigation into the bitter struggle for Tasmania’s crowning glory. The catalyst is confronting Youtube video of a Tiananmen Square-like event on our own doorstep.

The nebulously rich narrative flows through a tapestry of reminiscences of childhood, past lives, relationships, historic events and personal experiences, with a brash honesty and coarse, colourful language. It reflects the polarising, frustrating, emotionally murky political and economic issues undermining the value of the decency, common sense and humanity of ordinary Tasmanians.

Seduced by conservationists and challenged by loggers, the author reflects, in chameleon style, on a complex yet basic, universal question of the survival and sustainability of the planet, as it is played out in the microcosm of contradiction that is Tasmania’s forests.

A patchwork of facts, reports, scientific analyses, myriad human stories, interviews, personal encounters and self-discoveries are summarised in the authors own words: “how can so many people be looking at the same thing and seeing it so differently?”