Forests produce lumber, shelter a dazzling variety of plant and animal life, and serve as our planet’s lungs, cleansing the atmosphere of carbon dioxide. But we’re losing them at an alarming rate. The Smithsonian Institution’s Stuart Davies addresses their importance to the overall health of our planet in the third installment of Conserving Our Dynamic Planet, a series featuring talks by Smithsonian scientists and co-presented by the Linda Hall Library. Davies, a tropical ecologist with 22 years of experience working throughout the tropics, is director of the Smithsonian’s Center for Tropical Forest Science.