Talking trees

The potential of trees as a saviour from environmental collapse is well known. Once mature, a single tree can absorb up to 10kg of CO2 per year, equivalent to the amount of CO2 emitted from using 436 barrels of oil. As part of an orchestral forest, trees constitute the backbone of our existence, providing the oxygen we breathe, filtering polluting particles, and offering promising medicinal properties. But how much do we really know about trees beyond the utility we assign them? After some investigation into these majestical entities – specifically those trees that belong to old-growth forests – I can tell you that our ignorance is far from bliss.

The campaign to plant trees has gained favourable traction in recent years. We are warming to those companies that honour the green giants in their production and retail approaches, and we enjoy the tangibility of a seemingly simple solution to our environmental misdeeds. However, the harsh reality that many of us don’t realise is that re-planted forests, as they currently stand, aren’t anywhere near as regenerative as old-growth forests. The uninterrupted forests whose trees span centuries ultimately reign supreme. Of these, there is an estimated 1.11 billion hectares left, an area barely the size of Europe.

Old-growth trees are synchronised for maximum durability owing to their slow, steady and undisturbed growth

The ecosystem of an old-growth forest is astonishingly intricate. Following years of co-operative evolution, its trees create their own underground communicational networks, transmitting signals through fungal connections to protect each other from environmental threats by sending out chemical warnings through what is called synergistic interaction. Old-growth trees are synchronised for maximum durability owing to their slow, steady, and undisturbed growth. The ‘wood wide web’, as professor of forest ecology Dr Simard calls it, is humbly heterogenous. Alternatively, a plantation forest is designed systematically to meet a production quota. As its trees are grown artificially, often in places where their species aren’t native, their capacity for growth and sophistication is hindered as their roots are irreparably disoriented. A forest that lacks unity emerges, fabricated superficially to commercial ends.

We can and should differentiate the capitalized green hubs of these plantation forests from genuine reforestation efforts to build back autonomous forests. These man-made forests, designed by experts who estimate variables such as photosynthesis rate per square centimetre to ensure maximum cost-efficiency and productivity, have the potential to re-ignite their magical connections in a superior ecosystem. Reforestation is therefore a worthy cause with some scientists suggesting that it can provide 18% of climate change mitigation by 2030. And it’s not all doom and gloom for young forests in the meantime, with some studies indicating that they may even absorb more carbon overall as they are densely and copiously organised.

Reforestation programmes take up to 10-15 years to be completed, are costly for developing countries and, if unsuccessful, may impose irrevocable damage to the environment

What is indisputable, however, is that a tree’s carbon absorption rate accelerates as it ages. While we see promise in reforestation efforts, we must urgently protect the remaining old-growth forests who, beyond their individual majesty, are some of the planet’s biggest carbon storehouses. When these forests are logged, it’s not only an ecosystemic tragedy, but huge amounts of carbon are also quickly released into the atmosphere, undoing centuries of their devoted and unrewarded labour.

Furthermore, the environmental ethics of reforestation are complicated. As fast-growing, non-native plants like teak and eucalyptus are used extensively, we risk eliminating the diversity and natural enchantment of our planet’s forestry. NGOs (non-governmental organisations) have historically been opposed to the problematic method of planting trees where the local environment hasn’t been carefully considered, threatening the sustainability of monocultures and implicating the displacement of indigenous communities. What is more, reforestation programmes take up to 10-15 years to be completed, are costly for developing countries and, if unsuccessful, may impose irrevocable damage to the environment. Meanwhile, land rights are an unresolved factor in the campaign and the role of genetically modified trees in reforestation efforts remains ambiguous and disputed.

Uncontrolled reforestation and logging could have dire consequences for our planet’s eco-diversity. How do we reconcile our need, then, to revive the dynamic forest with the plethora of issues that accompany its replanting, alongside an economic reliance on timber? We turn to old-growth forests. Studying them is our best bet in understanding trees as talking entities, part of a productive community far more intimate than the human eye can see. We should preserve this quality in new drives to revitalise our forests and extract from them with owed dignity.

The practice of ‘New Forestry’ does precisely this. It is described as ‘‘an attempt to define forest management with timber production as a by-product of its primary function: sustaining biological diversity and maintaining long-term ecosystem health”. This ensures the long-term productivity of forests, whilst enabling us to extract timber in a more sustainable way. Instead of simplifying forest ecosystems, it acknowledges them for their nuance and importance as autonomous beings of their own beyond the paradox of human exceptionalism. Although the practice isn’t so popularised, it’s a step forward in the right direction. Hopefully, alongside drives like these, we can begin to assign greater value to the non-human world.