Fostering mutual respect with nature is the answer to saving forests and even solving the climate crisis, according to forest ecologist Suzanne Simard.

“It comes down to what we do with this concept of reciprocity,” said Simard, crediting the practice to long-lasting indigenous traditions. “This idea of being one with our land and being in kinship with the trees.”

The 64-year-old spearheads a British Columbia-based forest restoration project and recently authored a book, “Finding the Mother Tree,” about forests forging communities of their own — both above and below the ground.

“Every tree is linked to every other tree,” Simard said at a talk for UCSB Arts & Lectures earlier this month. “It’s a fully connected forest.”

The trees are tied together by networks of mycorrhizal fungi that transfer nutrients through the soil and to each other, she said.

Simard unearthed the subterranean system several decades ago, when she planted birch and fir tree seedlings and injected them with radioactive carbon. The carbon resurfaced in other trees and the suspected symbiosis was confirmed.

Trees don’t just have a mutualistic relationship with the fungi, they have a reciprocal give-and-take with each other, Simard said.

“Radioactive carbon moved from one plant to another,” she said, the exchange made possible by hair-like strands – called mycelium – in the fungi. 

Simard’s findings defied the age-old idea of survival of the fittest: a constant competition for resources between organisms. 

“It’s created a whole bunch of controversy,” Simard said, referencing her 1997 publication that disrupted the world of science. “That upended this notion that plants are in it for themselves.” 

The Mother Trees

Simard’s studies stretched further to discover that “the big old trees” are the most deeply entrenched in the web of fungal friends. 

“The bigger trees had the most connections,” said Simard. “We started to call them Mother Trees.” 

And their impact on the surrounding ecosystem is remarkable.

“They are hugely photosynthetic (and have) massive leaf area, so they’re shoveling energy into the soil and distributing it among all the neighbors of a forest,” like hubs for life, Simard explained. 

“This changes our whole outlook on how forests work,” she said. “Instead of individuals, it is now a big system.”

The Mother Trees are even able to recognize and support the growth of trees planted from their own seedlings, “like biological kin selection,” Simard said.

Through the Mother Tree Project, she seeks to improve longevity and protect biodiversity in forests.  

She’s committed to restoring old-growth — or fully mature — forests by departing from extractive methods like clear-cutting, and instead, harvesting wood in a regenerative way.

“In British Columbia, only 2%-3% of our tall tree ecosystems remain,” Simard said. “We’re trying to find alternatives to this vast amount of clearcut logging.”

Simard identified restoration strategies of selective logging, improved forest management, and “proforest,” which allows trees to grow for longer before chopping them down.

The ideas just need to be scaled up to a global level, Simard said.

“I really do believe we can solve climate change and the biodiversity crisis.”