Importance of forests: understanding connections

In a grove of old-growth forests in Northern California’s Humboldt Redwoods State Park, emerald-tinged light filters through a dense green canopy. Fallen tree trunks are coated in a riot of fluorescent green growth and crescent-shaped oyster mushrooms.

Stumps, 6m in diameter, are obscured with budding wildflowers and ferns. Surrounded by these 500-yearold giants, I feel a needed sense of calm. After a year of terrifying change, deadly disease, sociopolitical unrest and raging fire, the forest remains a place where I can come to be still. But stillness is an illusion here.

The redwoods, seemingly unmovable, are always growing and adapting to the changing world around  them. Their existence is proof that nothing, even the worst  of times, lasts forever.

A child walks along the Redwood SkyWalk at the Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka, Calif., June 2, 2021. Redwoods can grow more than 300 feet high and 30 feet wide, and can live for hundreds if not thousands of years. (Drew Kelly/The New York Times)

And when you’ve been alive for hundreds, or even thousands, of years, there’s a strong chance you’ve seen it all before.  Redwoods are a beloved fixture of the West, beautiful and soaring with thick, almost furry red-hued bark, deep trunk grooves and lush green needles.

They can grow more than 91m high and 9m in diameter, and can live for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The oldest redwoods in California are between 2 500 and 3 200 years old.

Californians such as myself are possessive of them because they are ours – both coast redwoods and giant sequoias are only  found from Central California up to southern Oregon. Historically,
we have treasured them for their durability – much of the West was built with redwoods, which were logged to great profits.

Now, more attention is being paid to the value and importance of these trees and forests: the ecosystems they create, the wildlife they protect, the mental benefits they provide human visitors and the essential role they play as the world stares down the barrel of climate change. That’s all the
more potent considering just how few are left, tenuously preserved in small stands across the West.

An old-growth forest in Northern California, June 1, 2021. Less than 10% of old-growth forest remains in the United States. (Drew Kelly/The New York Times)

Although redwoods are found  only on the West Coast, other old-growth forests can be found around the world, from beech pine stands in Ohio to Douglas fir  groves in the Pacific Northwest.

There’s not a single, agreed upon definition of an old growth forest; the term was first used by ecologists in the 1970s describing forests that are at least 150 years old with a diverse ecosystem
and are largely undisturbed by human impact and intervention.

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We’ve been cutting down  trees for centuries, but human impact reached new levels with the industrialisation of the timber industry, in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and the rise
in clear-cutting, in which entire forests are razed.

The Redwood Forest Institute’s Parabolic Glass House, designed and built by Charles Bello, in Mendocino County, Calif., June 2, 2021. Redwoods are a beloved fixture of the West, beautiful and soaring with thick, almost furry red-hued bark, deep trunk grooves and lush green needles. (Drew Kelly/The New York Times)

While efforts have been made to replant trees, research in recent decades has sought to show the importance of the diversity found within old-growth forests around the world, versus the near monoculture of replanted stands of trees. Old-growth forests – particularly redwood forests – are critical actors removing and storing carbon from the atmosphere. These forests are social systems,
with trees sharing information through fungal networks.

Suzanne Simard, a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia, has dedicated
much of her career to studying the connectivity of old-growth forests and, more recently, the concept of the “Mother Tree”. Her research shows that the largest, oldest trees can act as resource hubs, sending carbon and nitrogen to seedlings through fungal networks.

She believes that understanding the complex connections within the forest is essential for both the trees’ survival and our own. “These trees are our ancestors, When you get into the forest, you fall in love, almost right away. It’s in our genes,” she said.

The benefits of spending time in nature are well documented,  from reducing stress to improving
cognitive functions such as attention and memory. In addition to preserving the remaining stands
of old-growth, Simard believes that it’s equally important to cultivate healthy, younger forests that
have the potential to become old growth environments.