Finding The Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

Why we chose this title

Starting with the agricultural revolution over 10.000 years ago, we entered the so called Anthropocene, the human epoch.

The epoch when human life started to have a significant impact on the earth's eco-systems.

Today, the impact of humankind has reached a tipping point.

The extinction of species is at unimaginable highs and the loss of precious eco-systems continues to rise exponentially.

Not only have we destroyed nature and other species, we continue to kill and oppress each other.

While humans are the most powerful species on the planet, we are also the most dangerous one.

Brené Brown distinguishes between power over and power with.

Where one views power as a finite resource, others see it as an infinite one.

While one is driven by fear, the other empowers and shares.

Suzanne Simard's research may inspire us to rethink our approach on how to continue our existence on this planet, on how we are going to use our power.

Trees are closely connected with each other.

They share resources, information and knowledge.

Not only between their own kind, but all different kinds of species.

An intelligent network that understands the importance of co-existence and co-dependence.

A network that has been able to survive natural disasters and to heal itself in the aftermath for millions of years.

Humankind has behaved like a never-ending disaster, not leaving any time for our planet

to heal itself.

But it’s never too late, we have the choice to change the way we behave, every single one of us.

To choose power with instead of power over.

Book Summary

In her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths–that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.

Simard writes–in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviours, recognize neighbours, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defences, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies–and at the centre of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.

Simard writes of her own life, born and raised into a logging world in the rainforests of British Columbia, of her days as a child spent cataloging the trees from the forest and how she came to love and respect them—embarking on a journey of discovery, and struggle. And as she writes of her scientific quest, she writes of her own journey–of love and loss, of observation and change, of risk and reward, making us understand how deeply human scientific inquiry exists beyond data and technology, that it is about understanding who we are and our place in the world, and, in writing of her own life, we come to see the true connectedness of the Mother Tree that nurtures the forest in the profound ways that families and human societies do, and how these inseparable bonds enable all our survival.

About the Author

Suzanne Simard was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University. She is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry.

Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls of James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.

Where to buy it

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