The Hidden Life of Trees - What They Feel, How They Communicate - Discoveries from a Secret World

Author(s): Peter Wohlleben

Nature | Staff Favourites

Are trees social beings? In this international bestseller, forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers. Wohlleben also shares his deep love of woods and forests, explaining the amazing processes of life, death, and regeneration he has observed in his woodland.   After learning about the complex life of trees, a walk in the woods will never be the same again.   Includes a Note From a Forest Scientist, by Dr.Suzanne Simard

This ground-breaking book, enormously popular in the author’s native Germany, has been quickly translated into English, maintaining the wildfire spread of its (r)evolutionary thesis. That trees feel , communicate, have families and society has been captured often in fiction, memorably by J.R.R Tolkien’s giant Ents in his Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, this book bridges the divide between science and fiction, providing an evidence-based series of stories which bring trees to life in a distinctly human way. This should help a vastly larger audience to understand and explain that which they, probably and intuitively, already feel.


 


Peter Wohlleben is a former forestry officer who has well and truly jumped the fence, taking trees in our consciousness where Peter Singer so memorably took animal liberation in the 1970s. The poor life of the plantation forest mirrors the battery farm, impoverishing us all.  In a similar vein, the experience of the lonely street tree, ‘fighting for its life’ in a dense urban setting, may be seen as a metaphor for our own alienation.  Perhaps the author’s anthropomorphising of trees will ‘arboromorphise’ us, providing an empathetic foundation for rediscovery of the clean air and deep calm of a walk in an old growth forest. -> Mark


Product Information

General Fields

  • : 9781863958738
  • : Black Inc.
  • : Black Inc.
  • : May 2016
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Peter Wohlleben
  • : 240