Finding the Mother Tree - discovering the wisdom of the forest
by Simard, Suzanne (1960- )
pub. by Random House Large Print, NY 2011       isbn 978-0-593-45942-3 -     - LCCN = 2021- - - Epilogue the Mother Tree Projecy p. 488-491 - - Acknowledgments p. 493-500 - - Bibliography p. 501-545 - - Index p. 548-574 - - Total 577 p.
This book is a biography as well as a description of a life-work. Suzanne Simard was born in the Monaanshee Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. Her extended family had lived there for some generations and supported themselves using local resources, including the simpler logging (tree harvesting) methods of the time. They were mindful of the long term effects and were careful not to harvest more than the nature could re-populate.
Early in life she worked for logging companies which clear-cut the areas which they harvested, and was involved in re- planting the clear-cut areas. She discovered that most of the re-planting was not successful. She went to college at Oregon State Univ. and University of British Columbia, eventually getting a PhD from Oregon State. Her thesis, completed in 1995 is titled -Interspecific Carbon Transfer in Ectomycorrhizal Tree Species Mixtures- She did considerable research in the field and also in lab and greenhouse settings. She discovered and studied the relationships of various species of trees to one another, connected through the mycelium of various beneficial fungi. She battled with governmental policy specialists who refused to understand that to be successful in growing trees the plantings need to be mulit-species and rather than sole species as through mycelium connections through the roots of the various species of trees. For many years she has taught at the Univ. of British Columbia as professor of fore3st ecology in the Faculty of Forstry.
Some of the research included the use of heavy doses of Roundup (glyphosate) which was the practice by commercial foresters when re-planting cleared areas to prevent species other than that re-planted from growing. This was one of the ways of accomplishing the -free to grow- policy which assumed that any other plant than the desired one would compete with the desired plant for nutrient resources. Simard research proved this was not correct.
Later in life Simard suffered with cancer, and after considerable surgery and chemotherapy (which she describes in detail) managed to control.
The biographical part of the book describes her family, marriage, and friendships throughout her life, and related to her study and work.
She started the Mother Tree Project in 2015. It examines 9 experimental forests in British Columbia to study interactions in the webs of interactions in different tree-species mixtures. She is also very concerned by climate change and the rapid build up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
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~ 2023-02-12 ~

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