For the Love of Trees

 
I decided to write about trees as an antidote to the awfulness surrounding us.
I am choosing to calm my mind and concentrate on the healing power of nature’s garden - that is, trees.
I am sick of the state of the nation – and the whole world - regarding everything: inequality, corruption, rorts, inability to deal constructively with Covid 19 and the tragic neglect of the urgent Climate Change situation.
So, I’m letting my mind wander off to trees….
 
I have always loved trees. I look at them, I breathe them in, and I often photograph them. Recently returned from a road trip around outback NSW, on reviewing my photos, I was not surprised to see that many of them were of trees.

I am currently reading “The Heartbeat of Trees”, by Peter Wohlleben*, who also wrote, “The Hidden Life of Trees”. Both excellent and enlightening books.
The amazing truth is that trees have a large input into how humans are “deeply connected to the natural world”.
They are lifesavers in more ways than one.
To cut them down and cause destruction of forests is unthinkable to many – including me.

Recent publicity around so-called, ‘forest bathing’, shows that it is proving to be a salve for stress and anxiety. No, it does not involve shedding of clothes, nor a bathtub! Search Google to find out more about the ‘Japanese wellbeing phenomenon’.  

Part of what I wrote in March last year echoes what I have been reading lately, as it seems that it’s not only humans who need trees, but trees need other trees – and creatures – and humans should – and must - take trees more seriously!
…’Trees need each other to survive, and trees need what’s below the ground as well as water and sunshine and soil.
Trees are social beings. Trees have a symbiotic relationship with many creatures—insects, animals and birds…’
‘Trees do need other trees—and plenty of them. Leafy canopies protect them—and the underground, almost mysterious, symbiotic relationship between tree roots and the helpful subterranean fungi makes for healthy forests’.
‘Healthy forests’ are what we desperately need.

Here’s another interesting fact: When a tree dies the resultant nutrients nourish other nearby trees. Also, it is thought that ‘mother’ trees can detect distress signals from ailing trees and increase the flow of nutrients to them. Amazing!

Importantly, the contribution trees make to the ‘saving of the planet’ cannot be underestimated.
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Trees are a wonderful and necessary part of our lives.
We neglect them at our peril.

*Peter Wohlleben is a German forester.