12/30/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/17mHuQqRtA/?mibextid=wwXIfr
The trees were talking.
No one was listening.
For decades, forestry taught one rule:
Trees compete.
Cut the weak.
Free the strong.
Forests were battlefields.
Then one woman asked a dangerous question:
What if that’s wrong?
Her name is Suzanne Simard.
Suzanne grew up in the forests of British Columbia.
Her family logged them.
She watched trees fall.
She watched new ones planted in neat rows.
She became a forester herself.
And something bothered her.
When forests were clear-cut and replanted with a single species—usually Douglas fir—the trees struggled. They died. They failed.
The industry blamed nearby birch.
“Competition,” they said.
“Remove the birch.”
Suzanne didn’t buy it.
In natural forests, birch and fir thrived together.
So she decided to test the unthinkable.
The experiment that changed everything
In the early 1990s, Suzanne planted birch and fir seedlings.
Some were isolated.
Some were left connected underground.
Then she did something radical.
She injected radioactive carbon into the trees—
different isotopes for birch and fir—
so she could track where the carbon went.
If trees were isolated competitors,
the carbon would stay put.
If they were connected…
It wouldn’t.
She waited.
Then she measured.
The carbon moved.
From birch to fir.
From fir to birch.
Not through air.
Not through water.
Through the soil.
Through a vast underground network of fungi wrapped around tree roots—
mycorrhizal fungi—
living threads stretching for miles.
The fungi traded minerals and water for sugars.
But Suzanne saw something deeper.
The trees weren’t just connected.
They were sharing.
The forest was cooperating
In summer, leafy birch sent carbon to shaded fir.
In fall, when birch lost its leaves,
evergreen fir sent carbon back.
Not accident.
Not coincidence.
Balance.
Older, larger trees acted as hubs—
later called “mother trees.”
They supported seedlings.
Fed struggling saplings.
Relayed chemical warnings about insects, disease, and drought.
When a mother tree fell,
the network weakened.
The young suffered.
The forest wasn’t a battlefield.
It was a community.
The backlash
Logging companies pushed back.
Some scientists scoffed.
“Too emotional.”
“Too anthropomorphic.”
Suzanne answered with data.
More experiments.
More replication.
More proof.
By the 2000s, the evidence was undeniable.
Forests function as networks, not individuals.
In 2016, Suzanne told the world in a TED Talk titled
TED:
“How Trees Talk to Each Other.”
Millions listened.
In 2021, she published her memoir,
Finding the Mother Tree—
a story of science, resistance, loss, and wonder.
Why it matters now
Clear-cutting doesn’t just remove trees.
It destroys relationships.
Climate change doesn’t just stress forests.
It shreds the networks that help them survive.
Some forestry practices have changed.
Some companies now leave mother trees standing.
But old-growth forests—the strongest networks of all—
are still being cut.
Suzanne keeps fighting.
For generations, we believed survival meant dominance.
She showed us something older.
Something quieter.
Cooperation.
The forest lives not because trees compete—
but because they care for one another.
Remember her name.
Suzanne Simard.
She taught us that when we cut down one tree,
we don’t just remove wood.
We break a conversation
that’s been going on for centuries.
🌲🌱
