The Dirtiest Job in the World? Charlotte Gill Finds Out in Eating Dirt

Charlotte Gill spent twenty years working as a tree planter. During her million-tree career, she encountered hundreds of clear-cuts, each one a collision site between human civilization and the natural world, a complicated landscape presenting geographic evidence of our appetites. Charged with sowing the new forest in these clear-cuts, tree planters are a tribe caught between the stumps and the virgin timber, between environmentalists and loggers. Her widely acclaimed book Eating Dirt eloquently evokes the wonder of trees, which grow from a tiny seed into one of the world's largest organisms, our slowest-growing "renewable" resource. But most of all, the book joyously celebrates the priceless value of forests and the ancient, ever-changing relationship between humans and trees.

In this video, she wonders what compelled her to take on the dirtiest job in the world.