TREEWILDING

Our Past, Present and Future

Relationship with Forests

JAK E M. R O B INS ON

PELAGIC PUBLISHING
 Contents

Acknowledgements vii

Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood 1

PART I. TREES: THEY RISE, THEY FALL, THEY MATTER 13

1 A Brief History of Forests 15
2 A Brief History of Deforestation 32
3 The Social Importance of Trees 52
4 The Ecological Importance of Trees 71

PART II. RESTORE, REWILD, REGENERATE 89

5 Forest Restoration 91
6 Natural Regeneration 110
7 Chernobyl’s Red Forest 129
8 Agroforestry 142
9 The Miyawaki Method 161

PART III. FOREST RESTORATION: A CONTROVERSIAL

BUSINESS 173
10 The Trillion Trees Controversy 175
11 Greenwashing Galore 186
12 Sea of Tree Guards 196

PART IV. UNSEEN AND UNDER-APPRECIATED

PERSPECTIVES 205
13 Trees and their Invisible ‘Friends’ 207
14 Senses and Memory 224
iv  Treewilding

15 Dark Emu: An Indigenous Perspective 241

16 Restoring Forests in a Changing Climate 254
17 Future Forests and Tomorrow’s Guardians 263
Conclusion: Let Trees Be Thy Teachers 275

Afterthoughts: Insights from Environmental Psychology 279

Notes 286
Bibliography 300
Index 320
 INTRODUCTION

Seeing the Woods

for the Wood
“If we are looking for models of self-sustaining
communities, we need look no further than an
old-growth forest. Or the old-growth cultures they
raised in symbiosis with them.”
—Robin Wall Kimmerer

Seeing the woods (complex ecosystems)

for the wood (timber)

I
’m sitting on a log, watching the crispy leaves from a nearby forest
dancing in the breeze; winter’s chilly promise is just around the
corner. The rocks are hugged by a fluffy cloak of moss, their edges
decorated by algae, like glistening jade necklaces. The log’s bark is
covered in sunburst lichens and a stand of curly bracken embellishes
the margins in the distance. There are no mature trees, but tree
saplings are dotted across the landscape. They were planted here by
humans, and now they compete and maybe even cooperate as their
young branches and leaves with tiny chlorophyll parcels reach for the
sky. Some saplings will hopefully survive and grow into a flourishing
community. Many dangers lie ahead for them, but in the right
conditions nature is remarkably resilient. This is the start of a forest
restoration project – a local story of hope. And what better symbol of
hope than the seed of a tree, fragile yet brimful of potential?
At a global scale, we teeter on the precipice of unrivalled biodiver-
sity loss and climate chaos, so restoring forests (and other) ecosystems
is vital. But the truth is that forest restoration often fails. It fails if we
don’t consider the livelihoods of the people who live on and care
2  Treewilding

for the land. It fails if we neglect to apply ecological knowledge or

promote Indigenous leadership. And it fails because we often view
trees as commodities or wooden street ornaments instead of complex
systems. Underscoring all these issues is our growing disconnection
from each other and the land beneath our feet, particularly in ‘high-
income’ societies. It’s safe to assert that we cannot effectively conserve
and restore nature if our worldview is predicated on control and
convenience rather than reciprocity and belonging.

Two spiritual dangers

As Aldo Leopold famously said, “There are two spiritual dangers in not
owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes
from the grocery, and the other is that heat comes from the furnace.”1
The same concept applies to paper and timber. How often do we
think about where paper comes from? As our connection with nature
weakens, is there a spiritual danger in supposing that paper comes from
the stationery shop and not the forest – a complex ecosystem? Having
written a book on restoring forests, I feel the need to acknowledge
the sacrifice of nature in facilitating the delivery of these words. Each
page of this book is a gift from nature. Each page was once part of a
functioning ecosystem, a forest, a dynamic community of life.
When we disconnect the product from its source, we risk
devaluing the interdependence of life. Indeed, many of us now live
in a world of luxury where convenience is experienced at the click
of a button. But it’s important to take the time to appreciate our evo-
lutionary roots, the roots of our convenience and the roots of our
destruction. It’s also important to understand the multifaceted values
of trees and forests, support the rich bounty of knowledge of different
cultures and build on restoration successes. By doing so, we can shape
the future in wonderfully positive ways and cultivate a deeper respect
and reverence for the natural world.

What exactly is a tree?

And why is it important to restore trees in our landscapes? A tree is
myriad things, transcending the boundaries of objectivity. A tree is a
subject and a living community. A paper mill owner may see a tree
as a resource, pulp-to-be. Living trees can be ancient. They’ve lived
through medieval history, quietly witnessing our tragic and halcyon
 Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood   3

days. Some trees burst from their seeds and anchored their roots
several millennia ago. Indeed, some living trees are nine times older
than the first paper mill established in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1390.2
These trees continue to inhale our exhalations today as we inhale
theirs. Carl Sagan famously said that it’s a “marvellous cooperative
arrangement ... a planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation”!3
Where does the word ‘tree’ come from? The answer lies in thousands
of years of history spanning the entire European continent. We know the
word ‘tree’ was uttered in England 500 years ago by the great playwright
William Shakespeare. Yet in tenth-century England the word typically
appeared as treow, a derivative of the Germanic treuwaz. This stemmed
from another word, dreuom, around 3,000 years ago. But we can
travel back further still, to 4,000 years ago and to the land around the
Caspian Sea, where the etymological trail ends. Peoples of the Kurgan
culture spoke Proto Indo-European – the oldest predecessor of Modern
English – and used dóru to describe a tree. This word carried meanings
such as ‘steadfast’, ‘hard’ and ‘strong’. We somehow got from doru to
‘tree’, but it’s easy to understand the reasons behind the meaning – trees
certainly conjure up images of strength, hardiness and resilience in my
mind, along with beauty, serenity and wisdom.
Just one tree species can provide vital habitat for hundreds
of animals: insects, birds, bats and reptiles. Trees are part of an
ecological community. But trees are also a community in themselves –
‘holobionts’ – a host plus many microbial partners that work together
as a functioning ecological unit. Swathes of bacteria, fungi, archaea,
viruses, algae and protozoa rely on the trees, and the trees depend on
them. It’s an intimate relationship spanning multiple kingdoms of life,
from the visible to the almost imperceptible.
To many Indigenous Peoples worldwide, a tree is a community
member. In fact, in many cultures, all elements of nature are animate
subjects, not objects.4 Indeed, the trees are considered sentient. They
inspire art and provide gifts in the form of medicines, food and tools.
Indigenous Peoples’ deep connection with trees and the respect shown
to them is arguably a profound omission from capitalist thinking.
This has consequences for biodiversity, the climate, our lives, our kin
and future generations. Having a deep sense of respect for trees is
indicative of a broader cultural and economic system that prioritises
long-term sustainability and collective wellbeing over short-term
gains and individual profit – and the opposite is also true.
4  Treewilding

A tree, like other plants, is a sensitive organism. Indeed, it has

senses. A tree can perceive, assess, learn, remember, and it can solve
problems. A tree can make decisions and potentially communicate
with other trees by actively acquiring information from its
environment. A tree does not possess a brain or neurons, but it does
have competencies that resemble cognition in a perceptual sense.5
Although contested, some evidence suggests a tree can protect and
nurture another tree when it signals for help.6 In one sense, a tree has
a family and a family tree.
Trees are instrumentally valuable to humans. In urban environ-
ments, they provide shading and cooling. They regulate nutrients
and stormwater. They remove pollution and emit health-promoting
microbes into the air. They provide food in nuts and berries. A tree
is also aesthetically pleasing; its fractal patterns soothe the human
mind by stimulating the so-called rest and digest part of our central
nervous system – the parasympathetic nervous system. Here, a flurry
of neurotransmitters called acetylcholine are liberated during vagus
nerve stimulation, which calm the heart rate in a profound display
of biochemical intricacy.7 A tree teaches us to play, providing a frame
for children to climb and play hide-and-seek and with sticks to build
dens. A tree provides a meeting point for convivial picnickers yearning
to be closer to nature. A tree provides and endures. Restoring trees
restores their vast and unparalleled intrinsic and instrumental value.

What are forests?

And why is it important to restore forests? Forests are myriad things.
They’re more than conglomerates of wooden structures standing
tall. Communities of sub-communities, forests contain multitudes.
They’re places of belonging. They take many years to establish and
grow; to form complexity and interactions; to build resilience, bonds
and entangled life forms. Forest are networks. They are labyrinthine
wonderlands of life and mystery.
The word ‘forest’ comes from the Latin forestis silva or ‘outside
woodland’. It was applied to areas of land frequented by royal families
for hunting. But they are far more than mere hunting grounds.
Forests are vast arenas of light-catching, life-giving entities,
shimmering, entangling, drinking and swaying. They’re home to
many creatures, great and small (three-quarters of the world’s life
 Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood   5

on land can be found in forests). They’re also complex ecological

systems in which tree holobionts are the dominant life forms, bound
by a rich tapestry of geological and climatic conditions. A subter-
ranean network of roots, mycelia (branches of fungi), microbes and
other natural elements may connect the trees in a forest like a vast
biological internet. The trees in the forest may even communicate.9
They might even warn each other of invaders through chemical
signalling, and they shuttle nutrients to each other: ‘You scratch my
bark, I’ll scratch yours.’
But trees are not the only plants in a forest ecosystem. Forests can
often be divided into three or four layers or ‘storeys’. There’s the forest
floor, which is typically dark, warm and humid. Only a few beams of
sunlight may hit the ground, especially in dense rainforests. Large-
leaved shrubs, creeping herbs and tree saplings grow in the sporadic
patches of sunlight. One level up is the understorey: it’s often dark
and humid there. This is a tangled network of shrubs, young trees and
vines that climb and coil around the veteran trunks, aided by their
highly attuned sense of touch. Next is the canopy layer. In temperate
forests, this forms the roof over the understorey – a complex maze
of leaves and branches. Swathes of creatures call this layer their
home or a pitstop since food is abundant. Rainforests have a fourth
layer – the emergent layer. This refers to the tops of trees that poke
up above the rainforest canopy, which reach close to 91 m into the
air. However, some forests can be sparse, light and open with only a
scattering of trees: heterogeneous rather than uniformly dense. Yet
we must remember that all the woody and leafy layers we can see
with the naked eye intimately depend on the tangled complexity that
eludes our sight. Indeed, the interactions and diversity above ground
are dwarfed by those beneath the forest floor. Therefore, forests are as
much invisible as they are visible and restoring them restores a home
to myriad organisms.
Forests are viewed, defined and valued through different lenses.
The choice of one’s lens will depend on one’s psychological make-up,
cultural upbringing, personal experiences and reflections, genes and
the environment itself. These all shape the prism of our worldview.
Through these various lenses, forests can be seen as possessing
intrinsic value – a value in their own right, independent of human
uses. Or indeed, as having instrumental value – a physical and
spiritual home for many people, a resource for timber production, an
6  Treewilding

A forest is as much invisible as it is visible.

ecosystem composed of myriad life-giving organisms, a repository

for carbon storage, a rich bounty of so-called ecosystems services, a
canvas for innovative farming systems, or all the above. Beyond the
tangible gifts they give lies a deeper value that’s hard to perceive. For
in their presence we find peace, a soothing balm to our ever-busier
existence. This mélange of definitions reveals that a forest is a treasure
chest of complexity, beauty, meaning and life.

What do trees mean to me?

I recall, as a child, spending countless hours in forests. A visceral
urge compelled me to be surrounded by the power and awe of trees.
Tree climbing was, and still is, a passion of mine. I used to climb
trees for fun, sometimes bunking off school with a friend to spend
time in the canopy of the local park. We’d sit in the comforting cradle
of a large oak, talk about evolution and time travel paradoxes with
a healthy sprinkling of incoherent babble and watch the day go by.
I now climb trees for pleasure and solace. Sometimes I’m lucky to
get paid for this. I find tree canopies to be one of the most soothing
 Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood   7

places. Perching up there with the squirrels and birds, surrounded by

the flittering leaves and diverse lichen and bryophyte communities
unseen from the ground – it’s calming, educational and inspiring,
and the higher you get, the more humbling it becomes. As an
ecologist, I regularly ascend tree trunks and scale the branches
to check for bats and birds who roost, hibernate and breed in the
cracks and crevices. This is all in the name of nature conservation,
but the peace, solitude and direct connection with these life-forms
are also important to me. If I ever feel disconnected from the rest of
nature, which has become all too easy in these digital and urbanised
times, climbing a tree, preferably bare footed, swiftly instils in me
a renewed sense of reverence and connectedness. To me, the act of
restoring a forest is synonymous with restoring meaning. It’s about
restoring the intricate web of life that makes these ecosystems thrive,
but also about re-establishing our connection to the natural world
and the meaning it brings to our lives.

Forests under threat

The UK was recently named one of the most nature-depleted
countries in the world.8 In light of this, ecosystem restoration
(including forests) should be a national priority. The UK’s woodland
area is currently 3.2 million ha or 13% cover.9 However, much of this
comprises plantation ‘monocultures’ that feed the timber industry.
The average forest cover of many European countries is around
38%, so the UK is lagging dramatically.10 Some people think our
woodland cover was reduced to 50% by the time of the Iron Age
(2,500 BP),11 after which large-scale human habitation, colonialism
and wars further depleted these ecosystems. The tropics alone lost
12.2 million ha of tree cover in 2020 – that’s three times the size of the
Netherlands.12 So, despite being myriad things (homes, gift-givers,
biodiversity supporters, with both intrinsic and instrumental value),
trees and forests are rapidly being diminished to feed our obsession
with growth. Yet there are important nuances to this narrative, as
you’ll discover later in the book.
The integrity of forest ecosystems depends on an eclectic
embroidery of biodiversity, the variety of life in an environment.
Microscopic creatures supply trees with nutrients and the ability to
converse with the local environment in chemical languages we’re only
8  Treewilding

just starting to understand. The forest’s animals, plants and microbes

contribute to energy flows, disease protection, and soil formation and
structure. The tight-knit relationships between these organisms allow
the forest to be resilient. Without this complexity, the health of the
forests suffers, and their capacity to bounce back from extreme stress,
such as climate change, dwindles. Our thirst for convenience at all
costs means we often fail to see the woods (the ecological and social
systems) for the wood (the timber).

Restoring forests
Ecosystem restoration is the practice of renewing and restoring
degraded or destroyed ecosystems. Think of it as helping nature
to heal after a nasty disease (the disease being habitat destruction
or pollution). There’s an imperative to conserve and restore our
forests and other ecosystems globally because, without effective
interventions, 95% of land on Earth is projected to be affected by
degradation by 2050.13 This will have unfathomable impacts on bio-
diversity, climate change and the lives of billions of people. Yet, as
mentioned, many ecosystem restoration projects have failed, despite
tremendous amounts of money and scientific knowledge being sent
their way.
Forest restoration (repairing damaged or destroyed forests) is a
growing scientific subdiscipline and an important one in many ways.
The discipline is young, and advances in technology (e.g., DNA
sequencing and ecoacoustics) are helping us to understand forests
on a deeper level. But an all-embracing catalogue of knowledge of
how to successfully restore forests and other ecosystems has been
held by many ancient cultures for millennia. Despite Indigenous
Peoples inhabiting only 22% of the Earth’s surface, their communities
currently protect 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity. Yet
there has been a history of relocating Indigenous communities in
the name of nature conservation, and this still happens today. This
is not only detrimental to the Indigenous Peoples but also to the
biodiversity in the forests and many other precious habitats that they
steward.
Tree-planting campaigns have taken off stratospherically in
the last few years, with everyone from ‘influencers’ on YouTube to
high-powered CEOs embracing them as revolutionary solutions to
 Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood   9

the climate and biodiversity crises. However, planting trees where

they do not belong, for instance on peat bogs, can harm ecosystems
and reduce biodiversity. It can also exacerbate wildfires and climate
change. Simply saying “I’m going to put money into planting a trillion
trees” often fails to acknowledge holistic options such as fostering
community-centred forests and providing support to help Indigenous
Peoples defend their lands. This will have a far more significant impact
on forest ecosystem restoration.
We need to take an ecological approach to tree planting. We must
also take a sociological (human community-centred) approach to tree
planting. Otherwise, our children may soon live in a world where 95%
of the land is degraded.

A story of reciprocity
This book dives deep into the fascinating, sometimes controver-
sial, but more often hopeful world of forest restoration and science.
I truly feel that to understand forest restoration and all its benefits and
pitfalls, we must also immerse ourselves in the past and the reasons
for the deforestation. As the old adage goes, “Only by understand-
ing the past can we shape our future.” Learning from mistakes and
building on successes is imperative for us to continue to grow and
thrive. To this end, the book begins by unravelling the evolution of
forests – how they’ve risen and how they’ve fallen. It also considers
why they matter, to us and to the myriad life forms we share the planet
with. The book then covers the many facets of forest restoration – the
good, the bad, the ugly and the hopeful, and ends with unseen, un-
derappreciated and future perspectives. I wrote many parts of the
book while walking with a voice recorder in hand through different
woodlands of the UK. Through transcribing my experiences, I hope to
guide your imagination on a journey through enchanting woodlands
while learning about restoration.
There will be musings about evolutionary processes from tree–
bird coevolution to epigenetics (how behaviours and environments
cause changes that affect how genes work without altering DNA
sequences). Evolution can provide insights into adaptations and char-
acteristics that allow nature, including us, to thrive.
Forest restoration is not just ecological. It’s also social. And for
some, it can be spiritual. Sustaining this nature-healing journey may
10  Treewilding

require a shift in worldview, or at the very least an embracing of other

worldviews. It will undoubtedly require societies to foster reciprocal
relationships with these life-sustaining communities. Treewilding
also intends to illuminate a pathway to hope and reciprocity by
promoting awareness of underappreciated perspectives. This includes
the invisible world, tree senses and memory, Indigenous views and
climate change. We can restore our forests and often allow them to
restore themselves, just as we can restore our weakening connection
with the land. These phenomena are truly interdependent, as humans
are very much a part of ‘nature’.

The unseen
As a microbial ecologist, I constantly seek ways to convey the
importance of the unseen. After all, it’s challenging to appreciate
what you cannot see. This is why I include a strong emphasis on
underappreciated perspectives throughout the book, particularly in
the later chapters. We must breach the boundaries of our perceptual
world to understand that visible forest biodiversity depends on the
unseen realm. Are there lessons of cooperation, interdependence and
diversity to learn from our invisible friends? I chat with leading soil
fungi expert Toby Kiers to discuss this further, along with the hotly
contested ‘wood wide web’ concept.
Another underappreciated perspective is the notion that trees
have cognitive and sensory competencies. In the twentieth century,
German biologist Jakob von Uexküll developed a concept called the
‘Umwelt’.14 This describes the sensory realms of different species,
that is, their distinct internal model of the world, formed by their
perceptions. Different animals have their own unique Umwelt and
perceptual tools (sensory organs) that limit what they can sense and,
therefore, how they make sense of the world. For instance, humans
and other apes have ears. These are a perceptual tool. They allow us
to detect sounds from our environment, enabling us to make sense
of the world around us. The same goes for our eyes, nose, mouth,
skin and so on. But our perceptual tools only allow us to detect a
small amount of the immense information out there. A bat, for
example, also has ears and can emit and detect sound frequencies
that are too high for humans via echolocation. The sound is real; our
limited sensory organs just can’t detect it. The same goes for other
 Introduction: Seeing the Woods for the Wood   11

signals in the world, for instance infrared radiation. All warm-bodied

organisms emit this, but humans cannot naturally detect it, whereas a
pit viper snake has special sensory organs that allow it to easily detect
an infrared-emitting rodent (its evening meal) scurrying around in
the dark of night. But do trees and other plants have an Umwelt? Do
they have perceptual tools that allow them to make sense of the world
in unique ways?
The inanimate pages of this book you’re reading, now delicate
slivers of dehydrated pulp, used to be part of a complex living system
capable of responding to and learning from stimuli in its surround-
ings. Trees (and other plants) can detect signals – chemical, sound and
light – and can respond to these signals to ‘choose’ and make decisions
that are most appropriate to ensure their survival. But like the pit viper
and the bat, trees do it differently from humans.
It’s vital that we brush away the egocentrism that positions humans
at the top of a hierarchy of life and cultivate a deeper connection with,
and truly respect the complexity of, other life forms. I hope these per-
spectives strengthen the case for doing so with trees.
Understandably, there’s a degree of ‘eco-anxiety’ in forest
restoration as we continue to fight a challenging battle to protect
nature. But as Martin Luther King Jr said, “We must accept finite
disappointment but never lose infinite hope.”15 There are many
examples of successful forest restoration ideas and practices that we
should promote to catalyse further positive action. We should also
acknowledge the origins and destinies of trees and how they influence
our lives. By doing so, we can work towards a life-affirming future for
ourselves and our non-human relatives, including those who gifted
these pages.

Scattered throughout the book, you’ll notice a small tree ring image at
the bottom of some pages:

This tree ring indicates that the following page will include a passage
about the destiny of trees. These passages are independent of the
chapters and include the words ‘I Once Was a Tree’ in their title.
12  Treewilding

They’re small acknowledgements that many of the products we use in

our everyday lives were derived from trees.

Trees and forests are myriad things. They are both visible and invisible.
Objects and subjects. Ecological and social. Homes, communities, gift
givers and solace providers – and we must band together to protect
them. On this note, I hope you enjoy reading Treewilding: Our Past,
Present and Future Relationship with Forests.