The Global Forest by Diana Beresford-Kroeger
Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a botanist and medical biochemist, an expert on the medicinal, environmental and nutritional properties of trees. Unsurprisingly, the book is rich in scientific detail about how trees germinate, grow, reproduce and fruit. But this is not just the biology of trees, it is about the life of trees and how they collectively form the Global Forest.
Just like human society, the forest is a place of communal life, full of rich interactions. Food is shared, knowledge passed on and sexual relations take place. This book deals with these interactions to a fascinating level of detail. The author is intensely knowledgeable about trees, perhaps as much as anyone on Earth. She is uniquely equipped to explain not only the biochemistry of the forest but how that is expressed as life.
We learn about the role of the oldest Mother trees and how they nurture the next generation. How the forest on land sustains the forest on the sea bed and what happens when that relationship is broken. We learn about how trees produce perfect foods for all the creatures of the forest including ourselves. We are invited to join the author’s indignation at the folly of cutting trees to satisfy our insatiable demand for paper.
Humanity has treated the global forest with utter disrespect. The author never hectors us about our collective behaviour, but she doesn’t need to. She represents the beauty, complexity and necessity of the forest so eloquently and effectively that we are just left to squirm in embarrassment at what we have done.
The book is composed of short four-page chapters, each dealing with an aspect of forest life. Each is a hymn, full of praise for the wonder of the forest. Considering how humanity has ripped through the global forest, the author could be forgiven some bitterness towards this destruction. But this never shows. Like the trees she loves, she stands tall and showers the reader with the blessings of her knowledge.
Website: https://dianaberesford-kroeger.com/
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_Beresford-Kroeger
Originally published at https://chrisjerrey.me on December 27, 2020.
