Alice grows up: canopy science in transition from Wonderland to Reality

This paper gives, for the first time, a complete history of rain forest can opy access, from the early years to the present day. This review is primari ly from the European perspective, and explores the development of canopy ac cess techniques, from `low-tech' methods such as single rope technique, to `hi-tech' approaches such as canopy cranes. In recent years, canopy science has moved away from pure exploration (the `Wonderland' phase) to tackling the practicalities of rigorous canopy research (`Reality'), and the underly ing emphasis is now shifting from access to the upper canopy per se to cond ucting replicative and manipulative science. The paper concludes by advocat ing the integration of many access techniques (both hi-tech and low-tech) a t selected research sites, and certain neglected key areas of research are highlighted, including the comparison of adjacent primary and logged forest s.