Cloud Land

Shortlisted for The Courier-Mail People's Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award 2023

Wreathed in morning mist, the rainforest is a place where evolution and legend rule. Where the thunderbird once roamed, now kangaroos climb trees, which reach into the clouds to strip them of water.

On their property on the Atherton Tablelands, Penny van Oosterzee and her husband are regenerating rainforest from paddocks, reconnecting fragments into a living corridor that will run to the Daintree and beyond. Penny weaves this personal experience into a sweeping account of Australia's rainforests, from their swampy birth millions of years ago to the present.

Creation stories and science bleed together for rainforest people who remember through legend the volcanic creation of the tablelands. They managed Country for thousands of years, stitched into the patterns of the forest. Then came the European settlers and the killing times. The giant cedars were pillaged in a frenzy, and the richest rainforests in the world were cleared to make way for small unsustainable cattle farms for the settlers.

After bitterly fought battles against logging, much of Australia's remaining wet tropical rainforest is now World Heritage-listed and is once again being managed by Traditional Owners. Will the unique capacity of these rainforests to counteract climate change be their salvation, or will they continue to be vulnerable to exploitation for short-term gain?