*Shortlisted for the Lukas Prize Project*The tree was poached in a two-part operation. It was felled one night and taken another.Here was a murder mystery in the deep woods: who had taken the cedar, how had they done so, and - most importantly - why?__________A gripping account of the billion-dollar timber black market -- and how it intersects with environmentalism, class, and culture.In Tree Thieves, Lyndsie Bourgon takes us deep into the underbelly of the illegal timber marketAs she traces three timber poaching cases, she introduces us to tree poachers, law enforcement, forensic wood specialists, the enigmatic residents of former logging communities, environmental activists, international timber cartels, and indigenous communities along the way.Old-growth trees are invaluable and irreplaceable for both humans and wildlife, and are the oldest living things on earthBut the morality of tree poaching is not as simple as we might think: stealing trees is a form of deeply rooted protest, a