German forester Peter Wohlleben rose to worldwide fame in 2015 with the publication of The secret life of trees, a book where he exposes in a very charismatic way (and criticized for its shortcuts and its anthropomorphism) the way in which trees communicate with each other. Buoyed by this unusual popularity for a forester, he has since written several other works on nature, animals and the forest, including the most recent: Forests to save the climate.
In this other declaration of love for trees, he exposes their great adaptability and their power to help us meet the greatest challenge of the 21st century.e century: that of climate change. For him, the destiny of forests and that of humanity are linked. While Elon Musk has offered $100 million to those who will find the best carbon capture and storage solution, Peter Wohlleben tells us that solution is right before our eyes. Trees are “our best ally in removing greenhouse gases from our atmosphere”. In addition, they cool the temperature (a German study showed that the temperature in Berlin was 15°C higher than in an ancient forest) and they increase the volume of precipitation. They still have to survive the increasingly numerous episodes of drought.
What the forester demonstrates is that they know how to adapt if given time. In The secret life of trees, he explained how these great plants can learn and retain their knowledge, even transmit it to their descendants through their seeds. However, by removing the veterans from our forests, to replace them with young shoots, we short-circuit this transmission.
Very critical of logging, he denounced the replacement of old forests by plantations of fast-growing species, the compaction of soils by the passage of heavy machinery and the destruction of forests for the benefit of agriculture, mainly monoculture.
But when you cut down a tree to make a piece of furniture, a new one takes its place and continues to absorb the carbon, right? Peter Wohlleben demolishes this argument by arguing that if it hadn’t been felled, the tree would have continued to grow and store carbon at an increased rate, since older trees absorb the most greenhouse gases. .
If the idea of leaving the trees alone seems full of common sense, it comes up against the limits of reality and the needs of today’s society, which must certainly be reduced, but the author quickly evacuates this concern, exasperated by this question: “But then, where will the wood come from? »
In the eyes of the Quebec reader, another weakness of the book is its emphasis on the German forest industry. Are we doing better in Quebec? The answer will have to be found elsewhere.
Extract
“Even in good conditions, a primary forest needs to see at least one generation of trees flourish without humans disturbing it with chainsaws. This represents, depending on the species concerned, many centuries. Bad news for the impatient beings that we are. »
Who is Peter Wohlleben?
Ecological popularizer Peter Wohlleben is a public forest ranger in Germany. In 2017, he created the Forest Academy, dedicated to the production of educational materials on forest ecology. He has published ten books, including The secret life of treeswhich has sold over two million copies.
Forests to save the climate
MultiWorld Editions
272 pages