Fragility of the Forest: A Harmonic System that needs our Protection

 Photograph “Oak Grove” by Rachel Tilseth, oil pastel drawing, 2012 copyrighted 

I’ve always been drawn to the woods and even more so after wolves came back to WI’s forests in the 1970s. WI’s northern forests have wolves back to protect them now. It’s been a symbiotic relationship between wolves and forests for millions of years. Over the last three centuries that relationship has been disturbed by modern man’s greed for progress. In the name of progress modern man has chopped the trees down, killed the native WI wildlife, dug up, replanted into cropland, poisoned with pesticides,  and sold off  WI’s forests. 

If only the trees could talk they would describe a scene much like a holocaust with burnt, torn and barren landscapes.

There’s new scientific evidence that trees take care of each other through their root systems. 

Here’s the science.

“Mother Trees” Use Fungal Communication Systems to Preserve Forests By Jane Engelsiepen, October 8, 2012

“Suzanne Simard, forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia, and her colleagues have made the major discovery that trees and plants really do communicate and interact with each other. She discovered an underground web of fungi connecting the trees and plants of an ecosystem. This symbiosis enables the purposeful sharing of resources, consequently helping the whole system of trees and plants to flourish.” 

Watch the video here http://www.ecology.com/2012/10/08/trees-communicate/

Forests have provided us with many things “useful” for our daily living.  It’s time to give back by learning how these forests in WI create and support life. 

Next time someone calls you a “Tree Hugger” just respond with, “thank you!”

“The big trees were subsidizing the young ones through the fungal networks. Without this helping hand, most of the seedlings wouldn’t make it.” ~Suzanne Simard

Last fall I took a drive through wolf country in Douglas county to find the forests have been clear cut. Clear cutting not only disturbs wildlife it harms the forest’s natural systems of sharing that keeps it healthy and creates a beautiful harmonic ecosystem.

Please take a stand, a whole stand of trees, in northern WI and help protect them and the Wildlife they support. Talk with your state and federal representatives and tell them to #KeepWolveListed don’t clear cut forests. Forest are increasingly at risk and these fragile forests need our protection.

USA reps here: https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup

WI Reps in Madison http://legis.wisconsin.gov

“What we think we know, is that there’s some kind of electrochemical communication between the roots of the trees. Like the synapses between neurons.”

~Dr. Grace Augustine, fictional character in “Avatar”