Finding The Mother Tree

 Finding The Mother Tree

By Suzanne Simard

This book is a PhD Thesis softened with a life story.  Suzanne Simard’s life story in British Colombia, Canada.  The PhD aspect dominates as a “Woman in Science” and first takes on Canadian Forest Service policy makers with new science the goes against forest policy that promotes clear cutting large swaths of forest to a.) produce a profitable lumber industry, b.) creates a long-term sustainable forest.  I am suspect that the book is a paradigm shifter to the casual hiker with limited, if any, knowledge of forest management, who have been listening to the government policy makers as opposed to academia.  While Simard has produced many papers on the subject of forest management, this book as the loudest voice directed at the general public that I am aware of.

In the book right from the start, the reader is pelted with new scientific terms.  They keep coming at you and eventually they sink in and make sense.  When that happens, you are equally enthused as the author.  You are rooting for the forest as it takes on a parallel reality as our own human society.  We are all connected.  Trees-to trees, humans-to-humans, tree-to-human.  She starts with arbuscular mycorrhizal networks in the fungus on the forest floor, where trees communicate with each other much the same way the 2026 human society communicates.  As these parallel sinks in the reader will be motivated for a hike in the woods to have an intimate experience with the nature of a forest in a whole new light. 

 

Notes are coming…promise