Suzanne Simard, author of Finding the Mother Tree, also hoped that Canadians in the forest system would change their forestry practices. Sadly, the evidence is not compelling that this has happened. In fact, the evidence points in the other direction. She had hoped that her research would change their practices.
In her 2014 Ted Talk Simard showed an aerial photograph of forests within 100 km. of the forest she studied and sadly it showed many large pockets of clear-cut forests. It is far from pristine. In fact, according to the 2014 report of the World Resources Institute Canada in the past decade has had the highest forest disturbance rate of any country worldwide. This might have surprised many who might have thought that this dubious distinction might have gone to Brazil or Indonesia or Russia. In Canada the rate of forest disturbance is 3.6 percent per year. According to Simard that is 4 times the sustainable rate.
Added to that, massive disturbance at this scale is known to affect many other aspects of forest and neighboring ecosystems. Such disturbances can seriously and adversely affect hydrological cycles, degrade wildlife habitat, and emit greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere. All of this in turn creates a vicious circle of forestry abuse. This leads directly to more disturbance and more tree diebacks.
As if that is not bad enough, according to Simard modern North American foresters, when they replant forests they do a very poor job, because often they only plant a couple of species and also weed out what they perceive to be less valuable species such as aspens and birches. According to Simard,
These simplified forests lack complexity, and they’re really vulnerable to infections and bugs. And as climate changes, this is creating a perfect storm for extreme events, like the massive mountain pine beetle outbreak that just swept across North America, or that megafire in the last couple months in Alberta.
Nature loves diversity; it abhors species poor systems, even if foresters like them. They like them because they are easier to harvest and easier to replant. We always have to remember that nature bats last. We should be mimicking nature. That is called biomimicry. We should not be weakening our forests. We should be working hard to strengthening them so that they can deal with future challenges such rapidly approaching climate change. Complex systems like forests have an amazing power to self-heal. But again, they are not omnipotent and never will be even with our help.
Simard’s experiments showed that instead of clear-cutting, patch-cutting and retention of hub trees and regeneration to a diversity of species and genes and genotypes could create strong mycorrhizal networks that would help forests recover quickly. There is hope if we learn to act smarter.
Simard proposed what she called four simple solutions. First, we all need to get out in the forest and connect with them and really look at them. We cannot assume they are exactly like other forests where traditional methods might have worked. Each forest is different. We have to get actively involved in our own forests. We have to avoid the traditional one-size-fits-all approach. Good forestry stewardship absolutely requires deep knowledge of local conditions.
Secondly, we must save our old-growth forests. These “old growth forests are the repositories of genes and mother trees and mycorrhizal networks”. That means we can’t strip them naked. We have to cut less. Loggers won’t like this but it is absolutely essential. We can cut, but we must cut less.
Thirdly, when we do cut, “we need to save the legacies, the mother trees and networks, and the wood, the genes, so they can pass their wisdom onto the next generation of trees so they can withstand the future stresses coming down the road. We need to be conservationists.” We have to think and act like a forest. We have to mimic nature better—much better—than we have done in the past.
Finally, “we must regenerate our forests with a diversity of species and genotypes and structures by planting and allowing natural regeneration. We have to give Mother Nature the tools she needs to use her intelligence to self-heal. And we need to remember that forests aren’t just a bunch of trees competing with each other, they’re super-cooperators.”
Simard said she hoped she had changed the way we think about forests. I know she changed my way of thinking about forests. I wish I was more important.
I know a lot people including a lot of scientists, perhaps even a substantial majority will be sceptical of this new science. That is as it should be. Science should always question new ideas. But they should also question old ideas! Old ideas should not get a pass. Let the evidence speak.
I also wonder if indigenous people would consider this such a radical idea. They often speak of trees, plants, animals, and even rocks, as their kin.
I have questions, but maybe lousy ones because I have not done the reading. Here goes: […] “according to Simard modern North American foresters, when they replant forests they do a very poor job, because often they only plant a couple of species and also weed out what they perceive to be less valuable species such as aspens and birches. According to Simard,” My first question is, don’t those robust species show up and proliferate on their own? Therefore, no need to plant them when they will volunteer in and be the early dominant species in the cyclical resurgence of forest land. They are known to have great success due to access to plentiful water, soil nutrients, and sun. Foresters give the bigger/slower species a head start with planting, to encourage their reestablishment in the cut. So, maybe that is not so much evidence of a “poor job” but good silviculture and a practical POV?
[…] “These simplified forests lack complexity, and they’re really vulnerable to infections and bugs. And as climate changes, this is creating a perfect storm for extreme events, like the massive mountain pine beetle outbreak that just swept across North America, or that megafire in the last couple months in Alberta.” My second question concerns the cut region after the cutting is done, and the remaining ecosystem — the ‘slash’ as it is called — is busy gobbling up sun-water-soil nutrients. This new growth appears naturally after severe windstorms and fires. It contains all manner of flora and fauna that normally are secondary or non-competitive in a mature forest. They jump at the chance and populate the region. That means that a freshly cut region can be an extremely biodiverse region as a wide range of species “flood the zone” to try to get a piece of the newly available action. Everything flourishes in this early frenzy of regrowth and life thrives. Having the “wrong” species (like beetles or disease) *infest* an area is one hitch. So too, landslides and wash-outs that become a threat because of the removal of trees and the death of roots on steep ground. But both of these negative results are also natural occurrences and are part of nature’s rhythms, yes?
So… Is leaving the slash (which looks messy and abandoned and irresponsible, but is really a necessary starting point for biodiversity and healthy regrowth) not actually a responsible and logical part of the process? A fresh cut-block and the slash left behind is “ugly,” but so is a lobster and we EAT those!
Perception is sometimes an unreliable guide.
We live in cities and agricultural regions where our human bias causes us to view monoculture (lawns) and straight rows of planted crops to be “well managed” and somehow, natural. In our cities, a long straight avenue with a rows of towering riverside species like elms and oaks are great for birds, squirrels, shade, soil stabilization and a range of human city-friendly traits, but they are also unnatural as hell. We tolerate these adaptations as an adjustment to urban (roads, houses, parking lots, industrial regions, rail yards, commercialization, etc.) or crop production realities. We have learned to see these adaptations as proper and attractive, but they are weird; not found in nature. We forgive ourselves for creating cities. Winnipeg serves ALL Manitobans, not just its residents and also serves the needs of many other Canadians, and other populations too. We are tolerant of the damages cities do because we can’t figure out another way to do it. Early, pre-contact populations were much smaller and had a wonderful set of climate/seasonal, geography/place-specific adaptations and symbiotic practices in place for perhaps thousands of years. Those systems are gone. For me to stand in my 1950 home (built with clear BC Doug fir dimensional lumber) and point my finger at everyone in the timber-cutting chain feels a little off. To say Vancouver should not have been built where and how it was so that all of the accessible ancient forests could still be standing is hard to accept, big picture. The people were arriving and needed shelter. How else but timber cutting and the lumber and specialty mill industry? There was no how else.
I know I’m out of my depth, but I always want these discussions to include some of these unpopular touchpoints. My grandmother’s HBC dining room set is in our house, in daily use. The carbon from the hardwoods in it is still sequestered and this furniture serves a useful purpose in our life and has done so for the Toews family since the 1940s. It will continue to do so for generations to come. It’s comical to suggest that “modern plastics,” or metal for example, with their own long string of environmental horrors and performance issues could have replaced and outperformed these forest wood products. We must choose wisely, but wood has a place (it’s almost magical in its versatility) if we are willing to make some hard choices.
We make choices based on what we know and what we think we know. In the case of our 1950 home and 1940 furniture, the choices made seem reasonable to me in 2026, despite the consumption — much of it abusive and unsustainable — that was part of those past times.
you say you have not done the reading but you sure have done some thinking. I do though believe that planting traditionally preferred trees is not good enough. But you sure make some good points. Sorry I am at an intensely busy conference and have no time to give a thoughtful reply like you deserve. Keep the faith buddy.