The Power of Trees

March 1, 2023
Forester and bestselling environmental writer Wohlleben (Forest Walking, 2022) draws largely on observations of his home territory in Germany in this thoughtful look at how trees learn and adapt to difficult climate circumstances. As he explains, trees do not "stand there and suffer," enduring the effects of global warming as "creatures rooted in their environments." Instead, they react to the conditions that affect them. Ranging through a variety of tree species, he chronicles what that adaptability looks like and how much the luxury of time is needed for success. Readers will see the lesson here. Giving the environment the chance it needs to heal is crucial. The problem, as Wohlleben makes clear in chapters highlighting things like the pandemic frenzy for toilet paper and the global appetite for beef, is that the forest is often the last recipient of humanity's benevolence. The author is in his element here as a gentle purveyor of knowledge that provides a new perspective on a crucially important topic. His many fans will be enthused, and new readers will appreciate entering Wohlleben's evocative world.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 1, 2023
The author of The Hidden Life of Trees returns with a book that shows how trees help each other and us. A highly experienced German forest manager with keen insight, Wohlleben persuasively describes the beauty, complexity, and resilience of natural forests versus the planted monospecies "plantations" dominating Germany's arboreal landscapes. Illustrating for lay readers the work of Suzanne Simard, the pioneering ecologist who demonstrated the remarkable ability of trees to communicate via networks of roots and fungi, Wohlleben shows us how trees thrive in diverse, untamed communities--and how vulnerable they become when isolated from other trees. "Trees...are not life-forms that stand there and suffer as human activity changes the global climate," he writes. "Rather, they are creatures rooted in their environments that react when conditions threaten to get out of control." The author is less persuasive in his claim forests cannot be "managed" to thrive while being culled for considerable amounts of wood (the most sustainable large-scale building material, as it can sequester carbon while steel and concrete emit it). Wohlleben contends that it is "impossible to extract raw materials in a way that benefits nature"; that German forest-industry politics would get in the way even if it were possible; that wood doesn't last long, anyway. However, his sourcing is thin, as it has occasionally been in earlier books. Many agree with Wohlleben that trees are a key weapon in the war against climate change, but many also contend that wood can be safely drafted into the war--that humans, like trees, can collaborate with nature. Good introductory reading for those interested in the role of trees--and wood--in climate change.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 28, 2023

Expanding on his 2016 The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate--Discoveries from A Secret World, Wohlleben shows how forests function as complex biological systems composed of trees, of course, but also how trees interact with other plants, animals, fungi, and microorganisms that people are only just beginning to understand. Natural forests have many positive impacts on the environment, not just through carbon-capture as carbon dioxide is turn into wood, but also by lowering atmospheric and ground temperatures and acting as reservoirs and pumps in the precipitation cycle, Wohlleben writes. This complexity has evolved over generations of trees' decades- and centuries-long lifespans, lending resilience to forests in the face of environmental crises of climate, pollution, and drought. However, threats to forest health are intensifying rapidly, and human interventions to save the trees can do more harm than good. Wohlleben argues that a hands-off policy would allow German forests (and others, by extension) to recover better than the current capitalist approach to forest management that seeks short-term solutions, such as replacing old-growth hardwood forests with ill-adapted conifer plantations. VERDICT This book inspires wonderment at the resiliency of forests facing climate change, while taking a critical look at how even the best of environmental intentions may have long-lasting negative consequences.--Wade Lee-Smith

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 5, 2023
Forester Wohlleben (The Heartbeat of Trees) offers a pointed critique of harmful forestry practices and urges humans to let trees heal themselves. Excoriating government bureaucrats in his native Germany for their misguided attempts to help struggling forests, he describes how state-approved initiatives to introduce nonnative tree species better suited to warming temperatures than indigenous varieties have wreaked havoc on those ecosystems and devastated local animal and insect populations. Instead, Wohlleben suggests it’s usually best “to step aside and allow natural reforestation to take its course,” excepting for such instances as planting on former farmland “where there are no old trees nearby that could seed themselves.” As evidence, the author highlights trees’ remarkable capacity for adaptation and observes how, near his forest academy in west Germany, trees on south-facing slopes fared better during a 2020 drought than those on north-facing slopes because the former had “learned to ration water” from enduring longer, hotter periods of direct sunlight. The criticism of German forestry practices will be of limited interest to U.S. audiences, but the insights into trees’ surprising abilities captivates (Wohlleben contends that pedunculate and sessile oaks, once thought to be distinct, are likely a single species capable of changing the appearance of its leaves depending on the climate). Nature lovers should take note.