- Forests have long been celebrated in literature as a repository of life in solitude.

But today's guest says they are also an important repository of wisdom.

A wisdom passed from tree to tree, as they communicate with one another.

She's Dr. Suzanne Simard.

This week, on Story in the Public Square.

(upbeat music) Hello, and welcome to Story in the Public Square, where storytelling meets public affairs.

I'm Jim Ludes, from the Pell Center at Salve Regina University.

- And I'm G. Wayne Miller, with the Providence Journal.

- This week, we're joined by Suzanne Simard, a professor of Forest Ecology, at the University of British Columbia, and the author of Finding the Mother Tree, Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest.

Suzanne, thank you so much for being with us.

- Thanks for having me.

- So, there's, we wanna talk to you about your research, but tell us a little bit about you.

You, you come from a long line of foresters.

- Yeah, actually I come from a line of horse loggers.

So my, my family was French Canadian and they settled in British Columbia.

My great-grandfather was a horse logger, and he taught his sons.

So that would be my grandfather, and all of his brothers, and all my other, my dad, and my uncles were all horse loggers.

And so I grew up around this, and in the forest, in the deep forest of the, of the British Columbia, inland, rain forest.

- So, so the forest seems to, in reading some of your work, and watching your TED Talk, which is phenomenal, I was struck that you sort of have a personal relationship with the forests and the trees.

Can you tell us a little bit about how that developed in your childhood?

- Well, yeah, I mean, my, you know, my, my grandparents on both sides of my family were, were, you know, they were settlers, and they were loggers, and ranchers, and, and we basically lived in the bush.

In these little, tiny towns, they're not even in towns, really.

And so, really the bush was outside, we called it the bush, the forest, the old growth forest, was right outside my door, always.

And so, yeah, my life as a kid, and a teenager was, you know, in, in the forest, and climbing trees, and building forts, and exploring.

We, we lived partly on a lake, And so we got to, you know, build rafts, and go up the lake, and find a new forest to explore every day.

And, and so, yeah, it was, trees were my companions.

And along with, of course my brother and my sister, but that was the formative years.

That's what taught me that a forest is a pretty special place.

- So, that sounds like an idyllic upbringing filled with, with a lot of fun and discovery.

Did you, on a sort of deeper sense, maybe looking back, feel a connection to the forest that say an urbanite might not feel?

There's, there's something very special about, about the forest in that regard.

- I'm sure.

You know, I, when you grow up among these creatures, and all of the community that lives in a forest as your friends, basically, as, as your playground, you can't help, but be part of that.

And, and so, yeah, the, the, the forest is in multiple generations of my family, right in our DNA and blood.

That's, that's where we feel at home.

That's where I feel at home.

And, and I know, you know, since I've been teaching at the university in Vancouver, and I get a lot of urban kids in my classes, and a lot of them, at the beginning of the year, I ask them to put up their hand, how many of you have been in a forest?

And at least half of them have never been in one before.

And I think that this is, you know, this is, kind of a shame because, you know, it's such a great place to grow up.

But soon I get them in there, and then they fall in love with it, just like I always did.

- So being in the forest, isn't just being with trees and plants.

It's obviously being with other creatures and lifeforms that live there.

And a little later in the show, I'm hoping we're gonna get, going to get into, the broader view that you take, in terms of climate change and the planet.

But, what about the animals and creatures there?

Did those fascinate you as well?

- Of course.

(laughing) Yeah.

I mean, where I grew up, there were bears, and cougars, and eagles, and, you know, all the whole community of the whole food web of, of animals.

And, and so, yeah, they were part of it too.

And even, you know, I live in this little town, even yesterday, I went for a hike, and there was a bear at the bottom of the trail, and I see that bear quite a bit.

And so, yeah, certainly the animals are special to me.

And yeah, they're, they're just part of the forest community.

- Well Suzanne, let's talk about Finding the Mother Tree.

For the audience members who maybe haven't read it yet, what is, tell us about the book.

- So, you know, I followed in my ancestors' footsteps and became a Forester, and I went to Forestry School in Vancouver at UBC.

And, back in the late 1970s, when I did that, it was, it was very much a man's world, and they were just allowing girls in, in those years.

So there was, you know, so it was, it was, there was that aspect to it.

You know, very, very masculine, and the girls were sort of unwanted, but we were there anyway.

Secretly wanted maybe, (laughing) but the whole industry too, was very, very aggressive, very exploitive.

I would say, you know, I entered into the world of clear-cut logging, which I hadn't known, because my grandfather was a selective logger.

You just took the odd tree out with his horse logging operation.

And, and so I saw forestry as this, you know, completely, other than my experience, world, where they were clearing out whole valleys of trees.

And, and, so this, you know, was shocking to me, and I spent the rest of my career trying to understand, what were the consequences of that kind of practice?

And I have to say that, you know, when you exploit environments like that, the consequences are quite dire.

- [Jim] Could you give us some examples?

- Yes.

So, as I explained in my book, you know, big, old trees are especially important.

They have all kinds of functions in ecosystems.

So I'm talking about, you know, the oldest trees in the world are thousands of years old, the bristle cone pines, and then there's all kinds of other old trees, like yellow cedars live to 2000 years.

Red cedar is a thousand years.

So, you know, these trees have been around for a long, long time, and they're big, and they're big, and they've got huge crowns, and they play all kinds of functions in ecosystems.

And of course, that is what we target in our logging too, because they're the most valuable.

So what's the consequence of taking these trees out, and turning them into, you know, pulp and paper?

Well, for one, you know, we lose that genetic, that genetic history when we cut these trees down.

So, the genetic history means that the genes encoded in, in their seeds that have seen previous climates.

You know, we kind of lose that seed source, and we need that seed source going forward as climate changes.

Meaning that, you know, trees and seeds that have seen past fluctuations in climate, are the ones that are best adapted for future fluctuations in climate.

So that's one consequence, is losing our, basically our genetic, you know, I dunno foundation for new forest.

The other, the other thing they do, and what I study is that these big old trees have got these huge root systems, and these huge fungal networks that join in with all the other trees in the forest.

And these old trees actually nurture the younger trees coming up around them by sending carbon and information through these networks of fungi, these mycorrhizal networks.

And they basically collaborate with the other trees in helping lift up the diversity and health of the whole community.

There are many other functions.

We now know the big, old trees store, like, disproportionate amounts of carbon.

There was just a new study that came out yesterday, actually, showing that old oak trees in the UK, are, can absorb about a third more carbon dioxide than when carbon dioxide levels are elevated.

So, just showing again how they have this really important role in, in, in taking up carbon, storing it, and then redistributing it through the forest ecosystem.

And, and, I explore this in my book, and what is the, you know, the importance of that, and really it is, it is the foundation for forests being carbon sinks, meaning that they take out more carbon than they, than they emit.

And then for nurturing the regeneration of the next forest, and also for being just a important part of biodiversity, because their homes to, you know, to so many animals, birds, and, and lichens, and mosses, and even bears that can live inside of trees.

Which I've had the many good fortunes of being able to lay inside a tree in a bear bed, and just look up and be a bear for awhile.

It's, it's yeah, they're really special creatures.

- [Jim] So I first learned about your work from the New York Times.

You and your work, reading the New York Times, over a year ago, and then of course your book came out.

You know, and as somebody who hikes, and enjoys the woods and the forest, like many other people, I was astounded to learn that these trees that I'm walking through and seeing, could communicate, could help each other, and, and reading your book, it's almost as if they're sentient beings.

I don't know really how else to describe it.

But that, talk about that, how they communicate and help and why they do that.

And it's not just for their own species, but for other species as well.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

That's a great question.

So, you know, I think that just to go back and imagine, you know, before, before this research came out, that we, we thought of trees as just these inert, you know, objects.

And we really didn't think about the below ground world, we just thought about what we saw above ground, and people do love trees, but they, the understanding of them as, as societies or communities was really not very, very well, well understood.

You know, we, we kind of view trees as these individuals that are competing against each other, and that, you know, that vision sort of came from a long history of, starting I think with you know, with Darwin, and the idea that competition was the most important factor in evolution, and ecology, and the structure of forests.

And so, it really kind of gave us this view that trees just compete with each other, and, and that they're solitary and individual and trying to dominate, and this is what the most important thing wasn't for us.

And what I found when I went below ground basically, and looked at these networks, was that, that's not true at all.

That, that, yeah, trees do compete for light.

They try to, they don't try, they shade each other out.

But they also connect below ground, and they communicate with each other about their everyday activities, right?

They, and, and their, and also important factors like their identity.

So for example, a tree will be connected to all the other trees around it, through these fungal networks that basically help trees get nutrients and water from the soil in exchange for photosynthate from the trees.

These fungi link the trees together, and then the trees will send messages back and forth through these fungi as though they're telephone lines, and you can think of it like an internet, because it really is patterned after an internet, or I should say an internet is patterned after networks and forests.

And through these networks, there's information and resources moved around.

So things like photosynthate is moved around, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and water, and information about, you know, identity.

Like, hey, I'm a, I'm a Douglas fir, I'm a paper birch, and I'm related to you, and I'm not related to you.

They, they are that sophisticated in their perceptions, and the conveyance of their information.

They also convey information about, you know, whether they're injured and whether they're stressed out, or whether they're healthy, and they transmit information, enzymes, hormones back and forth, that, that, that basically inform their neighbors of that status.

And then this, this sort of variable status, or, you know, whether trees are shaded, or droughted, or injured, or ill, or a different species, or not.

All of this creates, kind of like, you can think of it as a, a gradient in forest that is constantly changing, and shifting, and along these gradients of information, and, and, status, information and energy flows.

So it goes from one tree to another, and you can think of it going from the big trees, the really resourceful trees, to the smaller trees, mostly.

And so this actually, this sharing of information and resources helps all the neighbors to survive, grow, be healthy and, and, and be part of this, this diverse community.

- [Jim] It's, it's, some of this stuff is, is mind blowing.

And, and, when I, when I, when I read it, there was sort of a disbelief.

So, so, but you're a scientist.

And I'm wondering if you could explain for our audience, how do you know that trees are sharing this information about identity, about nutrients, and, and, even nutrients to help other trees grow.

How do you know that they're actually sharing this stuff?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

And just, you know, I've, experimentation.

You know, I've had dozens of graduate students working with me over the last few decades, and we've done experiment, after experiment, after experiment to uncover this.

And I've published hundreds of studies, a hundred hundreds of, of journal articles that, that, you know, that are peer reviewed, and so it's, it's solid science.

The basic scientific methodology we use is that we, we work in forests, we work in greenhouses, we work in laboratories, we combine all of these approaches together, and we do these simple, elegant experiments where we'll grow a big tree, or we'll work in the forest with great, old trees.

And we'll have seedlings, for example, growing around them where they're connected into the networks of the old trees or not.

So we'll, we'll prevent them from connecting into these old trees.

We plant seeds or seedlings.

And then we use isotopes to label the old trees.

So using, for example, carbon-14, which is radioactive, or carbon-13, or N-15, or deuterated water, or P-32.

You know, we use isotopes, because we can trace them in the environment against the background of those, of those compounds that are, you know, more natural or more common isotopes.

So we follow these isotopes, where do they go?

And we, and we, then we, you know, basically, examine all the plants and seedlings around them, the ones that are connected and not connected.

And we find that, you know, those, there's a difference in the amount of isotope that ends up in a connected plant versus an unconnected plant.

It's that simple.

And then we harvest those seedlings, or we pull them up, and we analyze, you know, the carbon, the carbon content, the isotope content.

And we look at all the genomics of the fungi, and the bacteria, and all the creatures that are living on and in them, and through the genomics, and the stable isotope probing, we're able to figure out that, yeah, that, that these things in seedlings are receiving information from these old trees, but, you know, the disconnected ones are not.

And we do all kinds of experimentations with these trees.

Like, we shade them, we water them.

We, we give them more nutrients.

We injure them.

We create these, these differential gradients between the, the, the trees.

And then we infer from those treatments, those, those, you know, those conditions we, we impose on those trees, to say, yes, that is an important factor in driving this communication.

Right?

So if we shade a tree, and we find that more carbon moves into the shaded tree, we know that shading, or the depression of photosynthesis is a driving factor.

So, it's basic experimentation.

And I'll just say one more thing.

You know, that's reductionist science, we've used it to the maximum that we've could, but we also go back into full ecosystems, and we map what the networks look like, where, you know, where the, the dynamics of the, of the forest is changing in response to these manipulations.

So we understand at a more holistic level, as well, what the consequences of this information sharing is.

- And are there consequences then for the forestry industry, from your research?

- For sure.

So, thinking about, you know, forestry really going back to, you know, this idea of, of Darwinism and competition, which Darwin was right, that, that competition was important in natural selection, but he also knew that collaboration and facilitation was important as well.

It's just that this idea of competition really took hold in the 1800's.

And at that time, capitalism was also a theory that was being developed, and these kind of went and influenced each other.

And then in the, in the arena of management of ecosystems.

So forestry, agriculture, really, you know, really focused on this idea of competition, and then forestry practices developed their, you know, basically their line of standard operating practices on the idea that, that forests are only structured by competition.

And so, you know, how we grow trees, how we plant them, how we weed them, how we space them, and thin them, is all based on this idea that, that, we gotta get rid of this competition, or manage the competition.

And in so doing, we've kind of screwed up, right?

Because now we know that, that trees interact in multiple ways.

They collaborate, they share information, and so on.

And when you don't know that, and you start manipulating just based on competition, you're actually, you know, affecting the forest in big ways.

So for, give one example, spraying herbicides to get rid of native plants so that we reduce their competitive effect on the trees.

It reduces biodiversity.

It reduces the ability of the ecosystem to take up carbon and store it.

And it actually increases infections and infestations in these sort of purified, or simplified plantations, cause now they're very vulnerable without their companion plants.

And so what is the forest industry got to, got to do to change this?

They have to change pretty much everything they do, right?

Like they, they have to change their practices.

And there's been an incredible pushback on this.

They don't want to do that because, you know, there's a lot of money involved now, right?

There's supply chains, there's contractors, there's licenses, there's, you know, there's an incredible, financial infrastructure that's shaped around this basic biological concept that we kind of got wrong, or we did, was incomplete anyway.

And so, yeah, there's been a lot of reluctance and I would say, we're still not, we still have a long ways to go.

- This is truly pioneering work.

And early on, there were skeptics.

Talk about that.

And, and my, my guess is that part of that skepticism related to the fact that you were a woman in what was traditionally a man's field.

- Yeah, well, so my, you know, the skepticism arises first and foremost because people were really reluctant to let go of competition as the dominant force shaping forests, and plant communities, and animal communities, even.

Like it was so entrenched and ingrained that, it's like, there's no way, that, you know, that, that, the academics had a hard time getting a handle on this too.

And, and so, so there was a lot of criticism in the academic world.

And so I ended up spending at least another decade and a half, sort of redoing my experiments, doing more experiments to verify.

And then finally, I would say about a decade ago, a bunch of other labs around the world started doing similar stuff, and finding the same things, or similar things, and expanding the story.

And so it became more accepted, but yeah, in those early years, I really had to go through a lot of, you know, tough times, fielding these, these criticisms, and having to redo experiments, to show, to prove.

And would it have happened to a man?

I, you know, I, you know, probably not quite as much.

I certainly got, you know, a lot of criticisms that, that, you know, were leveled at me, probably because I was a woman, especially in the professional world.

It was much, because when you're doing an academic review, you're kind of anonymous, but when you're in the professional field, you know, practicing forestry, it's much easier to hear those conversations behind your back, or receive those criticisms right out front.

And so, my work was heavily scrutinized by the professional community.

And, and still today, I would say I'm kind of an outsider.

You know, I, I don't, I've always been kind of on the fringe, and not really accepted into the group.

And so that's a constant battle for me, trying to get my ideas into, into the inside, which is where it really counts, is where it's, you know, policies, and practices, and regulations, so that we can change the way we do things, so that we can make a better world.

And yeah, so certainly being a female has made that more difficult.

- Suzanne, I want to ask you a question that, well, I don't know how it's gonna come across, but should I feel bad when I have to cut down a tree?

- [Suzanne] No.

I mean, it depends on, you know, how many you're cutting down, and how you're doing it, but, you know, think of, you know, we live in a huge food chain, and we're part of it, right?

A food chain of organisms that live together, and trees and people are all part of it.

And part of that food chain chain means that, you know, creatures need each other for food, for, for medicines, for, for shelter, even, you know, different plants can shelter, other plants can shelter bears, and so on.

So it's this whole interdependent community that involves eating each other.

And, and, so tree cutting is kind of like a human eating or consuming a tree.

And so I think if it's, if it's done well, I mean, that is part of the natural cycle of things, right?

We need wood, we need shelter, we need food.

And so we live in that milieu, and that is our environment.

It's when we get greedy, and we start exploiting large tracks of land, that's where we get into trouble.

But just meeting our own needs, and doing it carefully, and with the knowledge of the land, and the, and the science, and the culture, and all that, we need to be mindful of what we're doing so that we don't actually, you know, reduce or destroy our environment in the process.

- So reverence for the earth, and for the planet, and for nature, of course, is very much a part of Native American culture and history.

Were, were you thinking of that?

Have you been thinking of that, doing your work, and in writing your book.

[Jeff] And we've got about a minute and a half left.

- [Suzanne] Yeah, so I've worked with a number of, of Aboriginal people, or indigenous people, first nations people, and they have really embraced, or I've embraced their worldview, which is that we're all connected.

We work closely together to, to create a convergence among Aboriginal and Western science worldviews.

And these, this work of connection in forests really resonates with them.

So it's just a natural collaboration that we've come together.

And I really feel like we're gonna move quickly forward when we work, when we work together.

- We got about a minute left here.

How, how, there have to be obvious implications for your work on climate change.

Can you just speak to that briefly?

- Yeah.

So this connection of forest means that when we disconnect them, when we exploit them, we actually disrupt all kinds of processes, including the carbon cycle, the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle.

Forests store, you know, about 80% of terrestrial carbon.

So they're a huge carbon sink.

And the old forests are especially very important.

And so, my message here is that we need to save our old forests to mitigate climate change.

And if we do, and restore our, our degraded forests, we can actually mitigate about 40% of the, of, of the effects of climate change down the road.

And so it really is on us to, to clean up our act.

Because they are such a, a keystone part of fighting climate change.

- Well, it is absolutely fascinating work.

And Suzanne Simard, thank you so much for being with us.

The book is Finding the Mother Tree.

That's all the time we have this week, but if you want to know more about Story in the Public Square, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter, or visit pellcenter.org., where you can always catch up on previous episodes.

For G. Wayne Miller, I'm Jim Ludes, asking you to join us again next time, for more Story in the Public Square.

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