Every square meter of forest contains = billions of connections and within these the forest gathers information, makes decisions, and carries memories.Īnimal networks stitch neurons into the forest’s mind. Above ground, every leaf is packed with bacteria and fungi that, through exchanges of material and information with plant cells, mediate the leaf’s life. When danger appears - pathogens or herbivores - the network carries this news through its multispecies strands. Simultaneously, fungus and root converse and, if the talk goes well, press membrane-to-membrane, allowing faster, more open exchanges. Bacteria that halo the root tip send hormone signals promoting plant growth. Should a plant root poke its head into this network of microbes, chatter turns to clamor. Each one of these cells is in chemical conversation with those around it. Rather, our human experience of mind allows us to imagine what might be possible in “the other.”Ĭonsider this rich substrate for thought: In a gram of forest soil live between ten million and one trillion bacterial cells and dozens or hundreds of meters of fungal mycelia. To speak of a forest’s mind and intelligence, then, is not to impose caricatures of humanity on other species. Other minds may exist within other living networks. We experience one manifestation of these relationships inside the bony plates of our skulls. Mind emerges from relationships among living cells. But just as dangerous as projecting human fairytales onto forests is the overzealous rejection of all analogy between human minds and the networked flow of information within ecological communities. To speak of intelligence in a forest is, on its face, an anthropomorphism, a violation of the creed of ecologists and science writers alike: Don’t treat other species like charming little humanoids! Trees are not leafy people and forests are not woody brains. With so few listeners, the forest’s thoughts, its sylvan intelligence, went largely unheard. We gave ourselves no opportunity to learn from the experience of others, from our supposed opponents. A divided human community further distanced us from the forest.
But I, like everyone else in the room, had experienced only a minuscule portion of the forest’s many natures. I was one of these scientists, at the meeting to report my statistical analysis of hundreds of bird surveys in forests and plantations. Some scientists and land managers had spent more time in the woods, dozens or hundreds of hours, cruising timber, measuring trees, or supervising work crews. Others in the room had visited forests and plantations, flying to Tennessee for short meetings, sometimes flitting in via private aircraft to touch ground for a few hours.
The varied weaves of bird song - impenetrably thick in the brush of 5-year-old plantation, gorgeously ornate in the oak-hickory, and thin as worn muslin in the older plantations - were nowhere in their memories. The pine plantation’s bite, the brick-like smell of sun-burned mineral soil with no trace of duff, had not entered their nostrils. They’d never wormed their fingers in the fungus-raveled leaf litter of the oak-hickory forest or smelled the litter’s tannic, nutty glow. Of the people in the room, the most powerful had apparently spent little or no time in the Cumberland Plateau forests in question.
#David haskell full#
The boardroom was full of talk of the forest, yet the forest was barely there. Afterward, the timber corporation’s CEO wouldn’t shake hands. Work with us or we intensify a campaign aimed at your brand.” The satellite images directly contradicted the claim of a senior timber executive that no clear-cuts existed on the company’s land. The environmentalists made clear, “We have satellite images of clear-cuts and data on biodiversity loss after logging. The biologists sliced back, slamming graphs onto the screen. Was the corporation damaging the ecological health of the forest? Should the company stop converting native oak-hickory forests into monoculture pine plantations? A forestry professor allied with the timber corporation trash talked a scientific report written by another forester and some biologists. In this installment, author David George Haskell shares a story that didn’t make it into his latest book, “ The Songs of Trees: Stories From Nature’s Great Connectors.”Īt stake was the ecology and health of forests in Tennessee. WHAT I LEFT OUT is a recurring feature in which book authors are invited to share anecdotes and narratives that, for whatever reason, did not make it into their final manuscripts.
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