A Note of Gratitude

First, a note of gratitude to you: from the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading this book!

Second, I want to thank my colleagues and friends at Leaf & Limb and Project Pando. Some of you are still with us and some have moved on to new endeavors. This book is a culmination of the many incredible things we have learned and accomplished together. Especially with Project Pando, none of this would exist without the time, thought, and labor that so many of you freely gave.

This book began as a simple presentation in 2020 called “How Trees Can Save the World & What We Can Do to Help.” I was shocked by the number of people who experienced an “ah-ha!” moment during that presentation and then doubly surprised by the number of speaker requests I received. But I was (and still am) limited on time. It was then that I decided to write this book so that everybody can freely access what I know.

I could never have completed this monumental task without help from my family, friends, and colleagues. First, I want to give a special thanks to those who read drafts of this book, gave me feedback, and helped me refine it. In no particular order, a big thanks to: Andrea Genna, Joe Sullivan, Cedric Camu, Chris Palmeri, John Brier, Robin Camu, EB Brown, Matt Fraley, Lila Camu, Nora Bryan, Zeb Baukhagen, Colin Camu, Matt Archibald, Katie Rose Levin, Nick Wrenn, Caroline Richardson, Morgan Camu, Anne Tyson, Thomas Kevin, Kyle Camu, and Patrick Kelly—without your help, suggestions, and feedback this book would only be a shadow of what it is now. Thank you!

Thanks to Jack Nestor, Letitia Glozer, and their colleagues at Technica Editorial Services for providing me with support through the publishing process—thank you Jack and Letitia!

Thanks to Elizabeth Newton for giving this book the perfect amount of professional copyediting during its final iteration. Thank you, Elizabeth!

Thank you to Josh Smith at Quartz Studio for all his help in creating and setting up webpages, Shopify, donation options, and various other technical wizardry necessary to host and distribute this book. Thank you, Josh!

Thanks to Tessa Williams for all of her beautiful videos and photography that are featured throughout this book. Thank you, Tessa!

Thanks to Joe Sullivan for not only helping read and edit, but for also checking sources, strengthening citations, and ensuring this book is backed by peer-reviewed science. This was a challenging and tedious task that would have been difficult for me to do on my own. Thank you, Joe!

Thanks to Emmanuel Brown for all his help with Project Pando. He first lived what is now Section 5 of this book as we worked to build Project Pando across many years. Then he helped write and edit (and edit, and edit, and edit) that same section. Thank you, EB!

Thanks to Kristi Stout for providing me with excellent editing help. Her suggestions and input helped transform this from a 400-page, 150,000 word muddy manuscript to what you hold now. Thank you so much, Kristi! I’m so glad we had the opportunity to work together.

Thank you to Rebekah Miel and her team at Miel Creative Studio for the incredible work they did in designing this book. I have worked with Rebekah and her team for many years and I’m always impressed by them. They are pros at marketing, design, and communications. If you need a creative studio that is not only excellent at what they do but also cares about the health of Earth and other issues that matter, I cannot recommend Miel Creative Studio highly enough. Thank you, Rebekah!

A special thanks to Doug Tallamy and Johnny Randall for reading a draft of this book and providing feedback as well as words of encouragement. Both Doug and Johnny have spent their lives helping heal Earth. I greatly admire them both. Thank you, Doug and Johnny!

Finally, I want to give a particularly emphatic note of gratitude to the three people who have played the biggest role in my life:

I’m especially grateful for my dad, Colin Camu. He helped with this book by writing, editing, making videos, and brainstorming new ideas. But more importantly, he has been an amazing business partner. Without him none of this would have happened. He gave me the confidence I needed to become an entrepreneur when we began our first company together (Lark Tours). Looking back, dozens of happy memories spring to mind, like the shindig we threw after we bought our office, Friday nights at Mission Valley Cinema, holiday parties at Leaf & Limb, and the first time we made enough money to treat our family—all the Camus—to a fancy dinner. Of course, there were also the terrible days when everything went wrong, chaos ensued, and we faced utter ruin. There are no words to describe the lows and the highs of this entrepreneurial road unless you have walked it. I love you Dad and I’m so grateful we were able to walk this road together!

I’m hugely grateful for my mom, Robin Camu. She is amazing! She fostered my deep love of learning and reading by homeschooling me and my siblings all the way to high school. She taught me the importance of integrity and grit not through words, but through living them in every aspect of her life. Few people are as tough and ethical as my mom. But it did not stop there. She was a force for positive change during my adult years. She introduced me to meditation back in my 20s, which played a critical role in me becoming a better version of myself. Then she introduced me to the Enneagram and coached me for many years. Understanding more about myself and others around me was another powerful force for change. Without my mom and her bountiful wisdom over the course of my life, I would not be here writing this now. I love you Mom and I’m hugely grateful for you!

Then there is Morgan, the best thing that ever happened in my life. We were both college freshmen looking for new friends on our first day of school. We hit it off famously and became chums right away. Now our roots are inextricably bound. She is whip smart, understands all the intricacies of Leaf & Limb, and is a crucial advisor on growth strategies and the stuff that really matters, like whether we should do something as crazy as quit offering tree-removal services (which was 40% of our revenue at the time). She helps pick up the pieces of my soul when the dark days of the entrepreneurial journey tear me apart. She cheers passionately during every celebration and happy milestone that matters most to me. And she does all this in her spare time—she has a far more distinguished career than I do. Best of all, we made two incredible little humans, Hugo and Jasper, whom I love so deeply. I love you so much Morgan and I’m eternally grateful for you! And thank you for all the time you invested in this book—discussions, brainstorming, and edits ad nauseam. I will do my absolute best to never write another book.

I’m so grateful for the amazing community that has helped me along my life journey. I have benefited from so many favorable circumstances and so many generous and incredible people. They are too many to list.

Last and most certainly not least, I am grateful beyond measure for the blink of an eye we call being alive. That fact that I see, breathe, smell, touch, experience, and love is mind-melting. I know it will be gone sooner than I would like. But I’m going to soak it up while I can by doing my best to practice mindfulness and to care for this marvelous, pale blue dot we call home.