大象传媒

In 2002, Germaine Greer bought聽 60 hectares of abandoned dairy farmland The site had previously been used for harvesting bananas and timber production, but one patch remained close to traditional rainforest. 聽Germaine Greer鈥檚 vision was to restore the land, its plants and animals, and bring the rainforest back to life. 聽In her new book, 鈥淲hite Beech,鈥� she tells the story of her extensive search for the right plot, her meticulous research into its history and her attempt to rejuvenate a magnificent ecosystem.

White Beech: The Rainforest Years is published聽on 30th聽January聽by Bloomsbury.

Discovering how powerful synthetic insecticides such as DDT could poison the food chain; identifying chemicals that kill聽birds; fighting soil erosion; persuading women to use cotton nappies; hugging trees to stop them being chopped down. 聽How have聽women like , and Wangari Maathai聽contributed to the international environmental debate? Jenni talks to Professor Melissa Leach, Professor of Anthropology at Sussex University about what women have done to protect the land and why they have taken action. Are women inherently closer to nature? And who is really in control, when it comes to protecting our land?聽

talks to Jenni about the rights and wrongs of gardening to encourage biodiversity.

Germaine Greer has sold her entire archive to the University of Melbourne where she studied more than 50-years ago.聽It includes notes for her books like The Female Eunuch, her diaries and correspondence with politicians, intellectuals and friends.聽 It will fill more than 150 filing cabinets.聽 Germaine talks to Jenni about letting go of a lifetime鈥檚 work and some of the more surprising content.