Mother Trees: Wisdom of the Forest

By FRANK LINGO

Suzanne Simard probably knows as much about trees as any person on Earth. The Canadian scientist and professor released her book “Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest” in 2021 to rave reviews from the scientific community, as well as the general public.

Professor Simard teaches us that trees are not just sources of wood and paper but are part of a complex interdependent circle of life. She shows how forests are composed of social cooperative creatures connected thru underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives.

I have felt some of that force of nature when walking in the redwood forests of California. Those giant mighty trees are humbling to behold, but beyond that, they exude an awesome aura of peace and wonder. That should be enough for people to preserve and protect the trees but unfortunately, it’s not. Hopefully Ms. Simard’s book will restore our respect as it reveals the realm of reality operating under the soil.

Having grown up in the logging business, Ms. Simard discovered that the industry had declared war on the forest ecosystem — the leafy plants and broadleaf trees, the nibblers, gleaners and infesters — that the loggers saw as competitors and parasites on the cash crop of trees.

Ms. Simard set out on scientific expeditions to find out where we went wrong, and why the land mended itself when left to its own devices. Conducting hundreds of experiments, she discovered a system of underground channels where the trees perceive, connect and relate to each other. Simard says that at first the evidence was highly controversial but that now it is rigorous, peer-reviewed and widely published.

Simard’s work challenges the over-inflated opinion humans have had of ourselves for ages, that we are the only species with sophisticated communications.

Trees relay messages back and forth thru underground fungal networks, Simard found, and the network is pervasive under the entire forest floor, connecting all the trees in hubs and links. The pattern of threads and synapses compares to our own human brains, including chemicals identical to our own neurotransmitters!

This information is hardly new. A December 2022 article in the Washington Post cited Simard’s doctoral thesis work that was featured in a 1997 article in Nature dubbing her discovery “The Wood-Wide Web.”

But now that the climate crisis has become an existential threat to humans and nature alike, it is incumbent on us to treat forests with the reverence they deserve. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (a major cause of global warming), they produce oxygen, they filter water, preserve soil, and provide habitat to a myriad of species in the web of life. What’s not to love?

In her book’s introduction, Professor Simard says “The scientific evidence is impossible to ignore: the forest is wired for wisdom, sentience and healing. This is not a book about how we can save the trees. This is a book about how the trees might save us.”

Frank Lingo, based in Lawrence, Kansas, is a former columnist for the Kansas City Star and author of the novel “Earth Vote.” Email: lingofrank@gmail.com. See his website: Greenbeat.world

From The Progressive Populist, December 15, 2023

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