00:04:37.420And then I began to think about what I'm really doing to this forest.
00:04:42.320Or shortly after that, I felt a sick tree in March.
00:04:49.000And when they felt the tree afterwards, there were a mess, a mess of water running out of the stump as if the tree were bleeding.
00:04:59.260And I thought, what are you doing to this wonderful ecosystem?
00:05:05.000And then I began to think about what I really wanted to be as a little child.
00:05:09.680As a little child, I want to be someone who protect nature.
00:05:13.680And when I was, let's say, 12 or 13, I realized that you can study something like this.
00:05:23.140And, yeah, when I became 19, I heard about forestry and I thought, ah, a forestry is something like a tree keeper.
00:05:32.360And that should match to my dreams about nature.
00:05:35.620And after leaving university and beginning to work in a sense, like I described it a little earlier, then I realized, no, a forester is not a tree keeper.
00:05:48.540A forester is a tree butcher and is a timber producer.
00:05:52.580It's OK, but it's not what I've dreamed of.
00:05:56.340And so I'm really happy that the book on trees was so successful because with the money we earned, we founded a nature academy.
00:06:09.060And in this academy, I can now work as someone I dreamed of when I was six years old.
00:06:17.460I loved how you explained that you wanted to be a tree protector, but that a forester was a tree butcher.
00:06:23.420And I'd never thought of it in those words.
00:06:26.340And immediately the moment you spoke of your academy, I wanted to be there with you and learning.
00:06:33.680And I would just love to hear about your beloved woodland.
00:06:38.960Our ecosystem is in a very bad mood because we have here in Germany, we don't have any single square meter of primal forest left.
00:06:48.180Our primal forest has been a beach forest, a beach forest from a very stable ecosystem.
00:06:56.340because they can control their own temperature, create their own microclimate and are very stable
00:07:04.100over thousands of years. But in the last centuries in Germany, most forests, real forests have been
00:07:11.620gone. Now we have plantations, spruce plantations, pine plantations, oak plantations and so on.
00:08:59.440And the less you touch such a forest, the healthier it is.
00:09:03.720And that brought my thought to the point that we should use just a little wood, a little timber, just as much as we really need.
00:09:14.960And in most cases, when you think about paper, when you print your emails, for example, in most cases, it's not necessary.
00:09:22.260In some cases, it's okay to use wood, for example, for furniture or good books.
00:09:30.400But in many cases, we wouldn't need that big amount of timber.
00:09:36.180And yeah, that's a complex task for us to do.
00:09:40.640But when you see those untouched old beech tree forests, then everyone knows instantly that's worth it.
00:09:48.300So the native forests of your region are primarily deciduous, yet the commercially managed ones are planted with non-native conifers.
00:09:59.920How would you say they differ in terms of health, biodiversity, and what happens when one of the coniferous plantations is left alone and succession is left to unfold naturally?
00:10:12.340I think nature doesn't have any problems with restoring the ecosystem.
00:10:19.740The problem is, if you're far away from the natural state,
00:10:24.160the stronger will be the reaction of nature to bring back the old system.
00:10:28.740For example, when you have such a conifer, let's say a spruce plantation,
00:10:32.820in Germany, those plantations are very endangered by storms and insects.
00:10:37.70057 percent of the timber is gained through catastrophes through storm falls or insect
00:10:46.380attacks so it's not really good to to work or to calculate with such plantations so it's really
00:10:53.260not a good business even if you won't think about the ecologic distractions you make with
00:11:00.700such a management but yeah we have every winter we have storms here in germany and every time
00:11:07.420you really hear about fallen trees and streets which are which are not able to pass because of
00:11:14.540such a dream trees which were fallen such streets so we have problems problems problems and our
00:11:23.340Or animals which are living in woodlands, they couldn't even live in such plantations.
00:11:30.640For example, little mites or insects or birds, which are used to live in broadleaf trees like beech or oak,
00:11:40.920they are not able to feed on needles of spruce or pine.
00:11:45.800So you find in such artificial ecosystems, you find other animals, which in our case, spruce and pine are trees from the taiga, from the northern woodland in Sweden, Norway, Russia.
00:12:00.840And you find in such plantations birds or insects like special ants, which live in such taiga forests.
00:12:08.040And so we have here in Germany, in many cases, an artificial taiga, which has nothing to do with our wonderful beech tree forest.
00:12:18.860I'm not against conifers, where they belong.
00:12:23.200When we look at northern Sweden, we have wonderful primewal forest with spruce and pine and other species.
00:12:30.000But here in Germany, we used to have beech trees, oaks, acer and other trees.
00:12:35.780And they are, in many cases, almost gone.
00:12:39.980I want to read a quote from your book that just fascinated me regarding this topic.
00:12:46.320However, reforestation programs introduce spruce and pines to areas where they are not native,
00:12:52.100and the newcomers experience substantial problems in their new habitats.
00:12:57.020Usually they are brought to low elevations that are too warm and dry for conifers to thrive.
00:13:01.680As a result, the area is dustier. They are easier prey for bark beetles. At this point, frantic scent males begin to swirl around in the canopy. The trees are screaming for help and activating their arsenal of chemical defenses. You absorb all of this with every breath of the forest you take into your lungs.
00:13:21.140consider this threatened forests are inherently unstable and therefore they are not appropriate
00:13:27.420places for human beings to live there is a scientific observation that speaks to this
00:13:33.060the blood pressure of forest visitors rises when they are under conifers whereas it calms down and
00:13:38.900falls in stands of oaks and you know you go on to explain just this relationship with the forest
00:13:47.540with humans in the forest when we go into these non-native forests that are not natural and
00:13:54.980they're not meant to be like that the ecosystem the weather does not support that type of forest
00:14:00.600community and that was so incredible to think about when I've been into tree plantations
00:14:06.880versus an old growth forest and how I do feel the difference and I actually really understood that
00:14:14.440while reading your book, the scientific backing of that, and then your take on it. I just wanted
00:14:18.920to bring that into this conversation because I think it's so fascinating to understand all the
00:14:23.840dynamics that are left out of the story, the dominant story at least, when we learn about
00:14:31.040what happens with reforestation in this way. That's a really good topic because it shows that
00:14:39.000we are still part of the forests. And many people living in
00:14:43.440cities think, perhaps we have lost connection with nature. But
00:14:47.700you can't lose connection with nature because it's in your body
00:14:52.140you're in your genes. When you look at evolution, then we know
00:14:57.300that at minimum, since one million years, mankind is
00:15:01.020making fire. And for making fire, you need timber and for
00:15:05.240timber, you need trees, you need a forest. So for example, brain
00:15:08.880development. For brain development, we need cooked food. We
00:15:13.620need fire. We need fire. So our brain is a result of forest
00:15:18.660tree energy, let's say like this. So we are strongly
00:15:23.100connected since 1 million years with forests. And it's no
00:15:27.940wonder that our, our body, our instincts react on good or bad
00:15:33.300forests, good or bad ecosystems, good or bad places to
00:15:37.080settle. And therefore, what you describe when you when you feel
00:15:42.180joy or happiness, while you're walking through a native forest,
00:15:46.080or vice versa, when you're walking through a plantation
00:15:49.060that this these feelings are missing. That's exactly what
00:15:54.060your your body and your instincts are saying. And some
00:15:58.740people, for example, when they when they enter our old beech
00:16:01.920tree forest. I've heard that several times. They said to me, don't call me crazy, but
00:16:08.160it's like feeling, it feels like coming home. And that's exactly the point. A good, stable
00:16:16.260forest, and that can be a redwood forest at the west coast of North America, that can
00:16:21.920be a beet tree forest at the east coast of North America or in Europe, that can be a
00:16:27.020spruce forest in northern Scandinavia, and all in those
00:16:31.880forests, you have good feelings, you have lower blood pressure,
00:16:37.760your whole body and your mind are in a good mood. And when you
00:16:42.900go through a plantation, your body feels instinctively that
00:16:46.620this is a catastrophe to nature and, and what your body, how
00:16:52.420your body reacts, that's exactly the reaction of the whole
00:16:55.340nature and the nature is trying to bring in a better balance.
00:16:59.660And that means at first that those plantations will be eaten
00:17:04.160by bark beetles, by other insects, by fungi, which destroy
00:17:08.300trees. And in the first decades, maybe such forests or
00:17:12.680plantations look very ugly. But afterwards, in just one tree
00:17:17.660generation, and that may be 500 years, this forest will change
00:18:23.700Susan Simard from the University of British Columbia, whom you reference, noticed that Douglas furs suffered when their paper birch neighbors were removed.
00:18:33.200The shaded Doug furs were receiving a great deal of carbon from birch through the mycorrhizae, and that this relationship flipped when the season changed and the birch shed their leaves.
00:18:45.320I would love if you could speak about the social nature of trees and resource sharing.
00:18:51.000Perhaps you could give us an example of unique tree relationships from your woodland.
00:18:56.100Perhaps in general, real forest trees, not all trees are real forest trees.
00:19:01.740Some trees like to live on their own because there are trees of the savannah of grasslands
00:19:06.580and there are usually no neighboring trees.
00:19:09.780So there are some trees like willows or some birch tree species or apple trees, cherry trees,
00:19:19.180But in general, for most woodlands with the tree species like Douglas fir or sequoia or in our region, beech trees, oaks, acer and so on, they used to live in family bands.
00:19:33.420And there's a very good reason for that.
00:19:37.860A single tree knows instinctively, I'm not a forest.
00:19:41.340And just as a forest, you can cool down together on a hot summer day.
00:19:45.300For example, trees are sweating together.
00:19:49.180big beet tree is consuming as much as 500 liters of water per day and that means that the the air
00:19:57.980gets very humid much cooler we have here um discoveries from the university of aachen they
00:20:06.380found out that the different the temperature difference from managed which tree forest to
00:20:12.140unmanaged tree forest is three degrees celsius in summertime and two conifer plantations
00:20:19.980much more so the trees can cool down together can create their own climate and when we think about
00:20:26.780climate change what climate change does to ecosystems then i would say the damage would
00:20:32.300be not that big when we wouldn't manage that intensive forest because every tree you cut
00:20:40.140you fell, cause a damage because you have a gap in the canopy,
00:20:45.700there comes some sunlight in, the air gets warmer, the air gets
00:20:49.500drier, and that's stress for the trees. So they try to close that
00:20:54.500gap. But perhaps the next time the forester comes again, and the
00:20:57.700next tree will be felled and not just one, but thousands and
00:21:01.500thousands. So the whole ecosystem is warming up. And when we
00:21:06.300we have on top the human made climate change, then we will see many forests die as we see
00:21:11.760them now dying in North America, for example, the lodgepole pine forests, which are attacked
00:21:18.260by the bark beetles. I think that's a mixture of many problems, but most of them human made.
00:21:24.600So trees are used to climate change because trees can become very old. When we look at
00:21:30.780Europe, for example, the last thousand years, we have had very warm times, we have had the
00:21:36.720Little Ice Age and the Middle Ages, I think the last very cold period was in the 1800s.
00:21:44.720So a tree which can become 500 or even 1000 years old has to stand climate changes, but
00:21:52.100it's only able to stand those changes together as a community.
00:21:56.840And it's not only the climate, but it's also when a tree gets weak, for example, or gets sick, it gets support from other trees.
00:22:05.460We have here in my forest a tree which was really very heavily damaged.
00:22:11.200And everyone would have said that tree is not able to survive.
00:22:14.520and but it's like a wonder because this tree has got support from the surround trees through the
00:22:22.540roots through the fungi network with sugar solutions and other nutritions this tree became
00:22:28.680strong again and perhaps and that's just a guess the next time when the neighboring one of the
00:22:34.420neighboring trees gets weak he can support this tree so they together they build a very stable
00:22:41.080ecosystem, or you can say they built a stable family band
00:22:45.320because trees, they know exactly who is standing beside it.
00:22:50.400For example, with the root chips, they can detect,
00:23:48.660And that's perhaps a little bit ironic where we see we had a good system, a worldwide system, a little bit breaking apart.
00:23:57.880And I hope we see those political situations.
00:24:01.560If trees could talk to us, they would say, stand together, don't make that nonsense.
00:24:08.020there's a fascinating section in your book titled tree school that tells of trees ability to learn
00:24:15.880from their elders as well as from their own mistakes and experience and you go on to explain
00:24:22.060how when trees are planted in isolation either in a park or in a land foreign to them they don't
00:24:29.160fare as well and they often suffer because they lack the community guidance in their youth i would
00:24:34.960just love if you wanted to elaborate a bit on this and you know what lessons are these isolated
00:24:39.800trees deprived of when they grow up bereft of family and their communities all trees like to
00:24:47.660grow fast and eat as much as they can and trees are creating food by photosynthesis with their
00:24:56.400leaves and therefore they need to have as much light as possible that's exactly the point everyone
00:25:03.080who grows fast in young years won't become very old. That's a
00:25:07.280biological principle which you can find in many species. So,
00:25:12.280trees are interested in becoming very old because it takes a lot
00:25:16.000of time to grow up and to become a tall tree, become the tallest
00:25:20.480tree to be on top of the forest and then to reproduce that takes
00:25:24.800hundreds of years and so it's very important to become as old
00:25:28.760as possible to to use this advantage as long as possible and therefore you need a very slow youth
00:25:35.820grow and that means that the mother trees bring a deep shadow on the little trees just three
00:25:42.540percentage of the sunlight comes down to the little ones and that's not enough to live and
00:25:49.180therefore the mother trees connect with the little ones over the roots and pump sugar solution to the
00:25:56.340little ones, you may even say they suckle their children over
00:26:01.260hundreds of years, we have 100 year old beach tree, little
00:26:05.580beach tree, it's just one meter in height and as thick as my
00:26:10.260little finger. So this tree has to wait perhaps one or two
00:26:16.260centuries more to become an old tree to be allowed to become an
00:26:19.440old tree. And yeah, that's in cities totally different when
00:26:25.860you have a tree which is planted near a street then this tree gets the full sunlight it's like
00:26:32.240a street kit this tree is allowed to do whatever it wants so it it feeds as much as possible
00:26:38.580sugar because it can make with all the crown with all the canopy photosynthesis in the full
00:26:45.100sunlight it grows very fast and we love trees which are fast growing because we are impatient
00:26:51.820We are a short-living creature compared to trees.
00:26:55.500So we want to see efforts, results during our lifetime.
00:27:00.040For example, when you plant a tree in your garden, you won't wait for 20 or 30 years
00:27:04.860to see the tree growing very slow, but you want to harvest apples or cherries.
00:27:12.320You want to have something like a garden furniture, which gives shadow.
00:27:16.860So we plant big trees, plant trees which grow very fast.
00:27:21.820these trees altogether can become very old.
00:27:25.000That's not so important for us, and it's okay to do so,
00:27:27.840because our garden, that's our home range, and there are we first.
00:27:33.320But just to explain, trees in cities or in gardens,
00:27:37.940they won't become older in general than 200 or 300 years.
00:27:42.940There are perhaps some exceptions, but most trees won't become much older.
00:27:47.940And we all think, wow, what an old tree.
00:27:50.620And in reality, that's a young tree, a young dying.
00:27:54.180Another example, trees have similar behaviors like we have.
00:27:59.160For example, they need to sleep at night.
00:28:02.120And the science in this point is just at the beginning.
00:28:05.080There's a team of Finnish and Austrian researchers, which they found out that trees let hang their branches at nighttime, just a little bit.
00:28:14.040And with sunlight, they something like stand up.
00:28:17.900What for? They don't know because that's a typical phenomenon in science. You have answered one question and then you have 10 new ones. But they know that trees have to sleep. And when in the streets you have streetlights near a tree and the light is burning the whole night, then the tree is not able to sleep. And those trees will die earlier.
00:30:27.880Every living being does harm to everyone else because it needs space, which another could take and so on.
00:30:37.380So for me, the main question is, how could we manage a forest without harming it too much or with harming it lesser than we do it now?
00:30:49.000And the first thing is, when we realize that we can't manage a forest, manage a forest means cutting trees, we can't cut trees and protect them, the trees dead afterwards.
00:31:04.740So the question is, we should have protected areas where trees can live their life and can live in family bands undisturbed for centuries.
00:31:16.380That's very important for me to have big enough areas where trees are allowed to do so.
00:31:22.120And then the rest of the forest, we should manage as close as possible to nature.
00:31:26.700And that means that we should use the tree species of the special area where the woodlands are, which we manage.
00:31:34.180In your case, that would be Douglas fir, hemlock and other species.
00:31:40.600And in our case here, it would be beech and oak and haze and ash and so on.
00:31:46.760And the second is the trees should live as long as possible.
00:31:53.280And in Germany, the average age of trees is 77. That's nothing
00:31:58.860that are not real trees that are tree babies. That's the average
00:32:02.520age of trees in Germany. So I think they should grow older,
00:32:06.900and they should become older, we should live them, although they
00:32:10.620will live in managed forests and family bands. And when we
00:32:14.160harvest them, not with big machines, we have all over the
00:32:19.620world the same technique with big harvesters that are machines
00:32:24.060which cut trees and cut them into pieces, cut off the
00:32:27.420branches and make them ready for transport. And those machines
00:32:31.500are very heavy, they weight up to 50 tons, and they compress
00:32:35.820the soil. And then we don't have any oxygen left in the soil.
00:32:40.260We don't have the capacity of water storage goes from 100%
00:32:45.360down to 5%. And it's very important for the trees to have
00:32:48.840this stored water in the ground because on hot summer days when
00:32:52.800there's no rain and a big tree needs 500 liters per day, then
00:32:57.280those 500 liters have to come from anywhere. And when the soil
00:33:01.600is dry, then the tree will become weak and sick and perhaps
00:33:06.080die someday. So when the damages when you drive with a big
00:33:10.600machine in such a forest, this damage, according to scientists,
00:33:14.320will be restored perhaps after the next ice age or recover after the next ice age.
00:33:21.720There's nothing you can do to restore such soil.
00:33:25.920So it's a pity and a shame to go with such big machines over the woodland floor, over the soil.
00:33:41.660That's a tradition made since 6,000 years, and it's still working today.
00:33:48.260And it's when you calculate it incomplete, when you calculate the damage you're doing to the soil,
00:33:55.100when you calculate the machine costs and so on, then you find out that the horses are cheaper.
00:34:00.280They are cheaper, and many horses say, ah, we don't have that many horses to do all the work.
00:34:06.180No, there's no demand, and therefore we don't have many horses.
00:34:09.460And the most horse keepers of those, we say something like tracking horses, those horse keepers, there are just a few and they say we would love to have more jobs for doing such work, but there's no demand.
00:34:24.400And that's what we are doing and what we are practicing in our academy. We're not making guided tours and things like that, but also seminars for woodland owners, which like to change the practice of management.
00:34:39.460I myself have been really struggling with the idea of machinery use, even in restoration work, say for creating swales or to bring coarse woody debris into streams for salmon habitat complexity.
00:34:52.100And I've actually operated machines myself this last summer while building the native species nursery. And I see the soil compaction and destruction that is inevitable with machines. And it did feel almost spiritually disrespectful when compared to techniques that use slow human animal strength.
00:35:13.060And so I wonder do machines have some use in reforestation or restoration work but hearing you speak it reminds me that it's not worth it even though there is this intense feeling of urgency and the machine has been invented and it's been conditioned in our mind that machines are fast and efficient.
00:35:37.900And now with so much damage happening on Earth, this feeling of we must use machines because they will be faster and we can't possibly protect and conserve and restore all of this land in a timely way without the use of machines.
00:35:55.080So I definitely feel that struggle in myself. And this other topic that I've been really
00:36:02.340questioning right now is forest thinning. There's also this dogmatic notion of thinning in forest
00:36:08.820management as there is with machines and restoration. And it's believed in a common
00:36:15.800practice that cutting intermittent trees opens up light in the canopy, letting the remaining
00:36:20.960trees grow more vigorously and with a more straight structure, which is then of course
00:36:26.360more profitable. Yet this idea is rooted in an understanding of trees as individualistically
00:36:32.540competitive. And you thoroughly dispel this in your book, describing how thinning can actually
00:36:38.020do more harm than good. And you've also now explained to us how fast growing trees don't
00:36:43.900actually live the longest and they may not even be the healthiest. So would you tell us how you've
00:36:49.680learned about the effects of thinning on forest communities and how does this widely accepted
00:36:55.280notion lack an appreciation for the cooperative and communal reality of forest as we're dealing
00:37:01.720with so many plantation forests so many second third growth forests that are extremely
00:37:08.280overgrown in so many senses and also a fire danger what do we do in place of commercial
00:37:18.220thinning is there another option that you see that's more beneficial in the long run for a
00:37:24.080healthy ecosystem to begin with there over your last question about the fire um yeah i think um
00:37:31.880the ecosystem is away from nature the higher is the fire danger you can see that in portugal for
00:37:38.160example they used to have oak forest in former times and nowadays they have many conifer forest
00:37:45.460forest and also eucalyptus forest. And now they are the most endangered country in Europe
00:37:52.460concerning fire, wood fire, because of those plantations, because it's like gasoline, the
00:38:01.840leaves on the ground. So when someone lights a cigarette and throw it away, the whole forest
00:38:09.140is burning instantly, whereas the old oak forest was not able to burn.
00:38:16.020You can try to light a beech or oak tree, a living tree, it's not possible.
00:38:22.980So I think forestry is causing many problems where foresters say,
00:38:29.100ah, that's a problem of nature, that's a problem of climate change.
00:38:32.760There are problems of nature, there are problems of climate change,
00:38:35.560but they wouldn't be that strong without forest trees. So to come to another topic, you mentioned
00:38:44.680that the trees, we were told that trees compete in the forest, and that when we
00:38:51.880thin a forest, there's more space for the other trees to grow faster. Yes, those trees are growing
00:38:57.400faster, but they shouldn't. Because fast growing trees won't become very old. That's perhaps
00:39:03.480you can compare it to the industrial animal keeping. Pigs0.94
00:39:07.480are forced in those industries, you can say,
00:39:11.480to grow in five or six months, ready for
00:39:19.480pigs out of the stables and bring them0.75
00:39:23.480to an animal keeper, we have here some people
00:39:27.480who care for pigs like that, they won't become much older than
00:39:31.480one year because the body is exhausted from fast growing their
00:39:36.160lungs, their heart and whatsoever. It's it's so so
00:39:40.420stressed from this fast growing process that those pigs are not
00:39:44.260able to live very much longer. So you have the same problems with0.82
00:39:48.860such plantations. First, when you plant a tree, the roots are
00:39:53.680damaged. It's like opening your your body and put your gut out,
00:39:59.380For example, the roots are not used to see sunlight and you take them out of the tree nursery, put them in a new soil, you compress the soil, then you squeeze the roots, perhaps you cut, you even cut the roots.
00:40:13.900And you know that the root tips, there are brain-like structures with brain-like processes going on.
00:40:19.120And when you cut those tips, the roots will restore, but not in the same quality.
00:45:31.480That means that we have a more humid microclimate.
00:45:36.220So that's perhaps the best thing would be a combination.
00:45:39.220And then all are happy in the nature and the people who are so good in bringing back nature.
00:45:46.940That was so helpful to hear, especially as I'm setting up this native species nursery
00:45:52.740and have put so much thought and care into strategy behind how to reforest damaged landscapes,
00:46:01.120whether that's been clear-cut land or burned areas and a lot of times especially in California,
00:46:10.060Oregon, and Washington with all of the land use change areas where there used to be oak savannas
00:46:15.240have been taken over by doug fir which actually is invasive in those areas and then places that
00:46:23.420used to have redwood have been taken over by hardwood such as oaks and madrones because the
00:46:29.180redwood isn't able to spread as quickly as these other hardwoods in the sun. And so there's this
00:46:36.040complexity to reforestation. And it's not just as simple as walking out and planting a million
00:46:43.600trees, which in and of itself is not simple. So to hear your thoughts with the birds and
00:46:50.160the biodiversity, which I'm very committed to when replanting, it's not just planting
00:46:56.140the one conifer that is what's been conditioned as the valuable tree, but how do we replant
00:47:04.440biodiversity along with understanding that these trees need shade and they need each other and they
00:47:10.740need the whole community and also being aware of the compaction to the soil. It's just a lot to
00:47:16.660take into consideration and I think also with you bringing up this deep understanding of the
00:47:24.220time frame of us humans and then the time frame of nature and the forest and how different those
00:47:30.660are and how we need to take that into consideration when we're thinking about how to be the best earth
00:47:36.260stewards we can be and the other thing that came up for me as you were speaking was the thinning
00:47:43.580and even how one may think that thinning is beneficial for forest health and fire safety
00:47:52.640it not always is that case and we really need to think about this more fully not just thinning but
00:48:01.140then selective logging and how so much of the time when trees are selectively logged the trees that
00:48:09.400are chosen are consistently the quote desirable timber trees with a certain structure that's
00:48:18.540straight and I think about well are we not removing certain trees and usually the oldest trees
00:48:26.360from the gene pool if we were to selectively log what do you feel is the best way to go about that
00:48:34.940when selecting certain trees and how to basically honorably harvest trees if that were the case for
00:48:45.820communities that still rely on logging for their economy yeah i would work without big machines
00:48:55.860that means in in every case where the machines are not able to drive on roads on dirt roads i would
00:49:05.800choose to do it with with horses and i would like to fell if a tree should be felled with woodworkers
00:49:14.280That's good for jobs, and that's good for the forest, and that's also good for the money, because you earn much more money with a healthy forest.
00:49:24.080And when it gets to the thinning, to be honest, it wouldn't make any sense if we would choose trees we couldn't use for planks, for example, just choosing trees because it's less worth for the forest.
00:49:40.120And we don't know how much a tree is worth for a forest.
00:49:43.360So it's always okay when you manage a forest to take out what we really need.
00:49:49.180And therefore, because our needs are sometimes a contradiction to the needs of a forest, we need those protected areas and in between some little areas, perhaps just 50 yards or so in diameter.
00:50:02.780And in this area, the trees are allowed to grow and to keep their complete genes because if you thin a forest in the first years, the foresters take out the trees which are not straight and have too thick branches or other things.
00:50:21.940And that means that they are bringing them, they are breeding the trees to a type which is not really wild.
00:50:34.980It's a domesticated tree species afterwards with just a few wild genes left.
00:50:40.340And there are some very important things missing.
00:50:43.380For example, a wild tree is able to withstand storms much better than a domesticated tree because it's able to move back and forth without breaking.
00:50:55.460So without breaking and the domesticated tree with good stem for forest industry, which is very straight and where the fibers inside are straight too without drilling, those trees break much easily in heavy storms.
00:51:14.380So it's always good to have those little spots inside with wild trees, with the complete genes.
00:51:21.540And over the pollination in spring, they mix their genes with the genes of the managed forest.
00:51:29.340And so you keep the wild gene reservoir of those forests.
00:51:36.060And so, according to the moment, according to our knowledge of the day, we say that's the best compromise for managing forests because we are also important as humans and it's okay to take out what we need out of the forest, but it's perhaps a better balance than it is now.
00:51:57.000And what's very important for me to say, when we protect nature, for example, what's wonderful, I love what you told about the restoration of forest and former woodlands, what you're doing, that's really a great job.
00:52:10.300And what we should know is that over a long time frame, the next ice age will come, will destroy that wonderful forest, a new forest will be built, and that's coming and going like it was ever in the whole time the Earth is in our universe.
00:52:31.980But nowadays we have the problems and that are our problems when you protect the forest or when you store a forest or plant new trees, then you protect the people, the human species, because nature protection is in first the protection of ourself.
00:52:53.000And I think it's very important to be aware of that.
00:53:05.720And when you protect our system, we protect ourselves.
00:53:26.660Each eye, ooh, that I'll rest my every burn, ooh, till all doubts and fears
00:53:46.580I would love to now turn the conversation towards forest and climate
00:54:14.700and how this relationship is much more expansive than the sequestration of carbon.
00:54:22.000Forests are the reason precipitation even reaches the landlocked interior of continents
00:54:27.740through the cyclical creation of clouds as water is intercepted, evaporated, and transpires as it moves inland.
00:54:36.460So could you share with us what you know of this phenomenon and help us understand why coastal forests are essential in this life-giving system?
00:54:48.580Yeah, that's a research, I think, from Russian scientists, which found in the Amazon region more and more heavy droughts in the last decades.
00:55:01.340And they asked, why? Is it because of the climate change?
00:55:05.740I think the climate change is nowadays the easiest explanation, but in this special case, they found out that forests are working like a water pump.
00:55:18.060Within a range of, let's say, 300 or 400 miles from the coast, the clouds are losing the rain and then disappear.
00:55:27.460So after the German edition, it's 600 kilometers, I think it's around about 400 miles.
00:55:35.740After 400 miles, usually in the continents, you have a desert because there are no clouds anymore.
00:55:43.700They have lost their rain in those 400 miles trip from the coast to the inland, and afterwards you have a desert.
00:55:51.700But if you have a forest in this region, then the rain falls in.
00:55:56.400The humidity is gassing out, is forming new clouds.
00:56:00.240the clouds are shifting into deeper into the country and raining again and when there's another
00:56:06.840forest going deeper into the continents and there's another forest and so on so the the water
00:56:12.500is handed deeper and deeper into the continents by trees and the russian researchers found out that
00:56:19.840even 2 000 miles away from the coast you have the same humidity the same rainfall amount like at the
00:56:28.560coast. But when you destroy the coastal forest, you destroy the
00:56:33.480main water pump, which is responsible for the first part
00:56:36.640of the chain. When you destroy it, then it's logical that the
00:56:40.980rest behind gets drier and drier. And that's the reason why
00:56:45.480many regions get more deserted gets drier, because we have
00:56:51.080destroyed so many forests, whether it is in the United
00:56:54.960States or Canada or Europe there when you when you look at
00:56:58.000the time shift films where how the forest disappeared in the
00:57:03.360last two centuries in the northern hemisphere, then it's
00:57:07.440no surprise that the inner of the continents gets drier and
00:57:11.600drier. Therefore, it's very important to bring the forest
00:57:14.920back. And therefore, I can say just again, it's wonderful to
00:57:21.200hear from you that you're planting trees and working on
00:57:24.360the restoration of woodlands forests are more than habitat more than just biodiversity it's more than
00:57:34.020carbon sequestration they also call in the rain and for us here in california and honestly all
00:57:43.120up and down the west coast drought is a major concern for many people and so when we continue
00:57:50.740to log our forest and then plant with agriculture or develop suburbs, which then pump water out of
00:57:59.060these aquifers that are then not recharged by forest, we're getting ourselves into this
00:58:05.980water management issues and water scarcity. And I know this is really happening all over the globe,
00:58:12.340whether that's in China, South America. So I think this concept of forest as water pump is so
00:58:19.200deeply important as we look to the future for human survival and survival of biodiversity and
00:58:26.820our other kin. So I was also so fascinated to learn that you have initiated a living gravestone
00:58:34.480project, which preserves a stretch of forest by selling burial plots with trees as living
00:58:40.460gravestones, not only as it lets the trees live out their lives fully, ensuring they won't be cut
00:58:47.420down but also instills a sense of regeneration and earth-based ceremony into human death
00:58:54.700and as our dominant culture has been so dissociated from death and fears and it sterilizes death
00:59:02.000i hope to see and be a part of more initiatives such as this in my lifetime
00:59:07.760and i'd love to hear your thoughts on what projects like this can bring to communities
00:59:13.040that's it's really a lovely project for many reasons at first i thought okay i had to get
00:59:21.980an idea how to protect an old beech tree forest which should be clear-cutted by the forest
00:59:27.520authorities and i thought okay we we need a rescue plan and then there came up the idea in
00:59:35.040switzerland that to to bury the urns of people in forest and i thought okay that would be a perfect
00:59:42.280idea. And we planned the project, we made the project. And
00:59:46.940afterwards, I realized that's even better, because it's it's
00:59:52.600brings back the real sense that that we belong to nature, that
00:59:56.500we are a part of the nature. And after dying, our body will go
01:00:01.060back to nature without being a environmental problem, which many
01:00:06.460people think about nowadays, because of the medicine and what
01:00:09.400your life or nuclear body. That's no problem when the body is
01:00:13.300burned and the urn is brought into the root system of an
01:00:19.300old beech tree because it's most of your remaining ash is
01:00:24.760calcium. It's not bad for the tree and it's vice versa. And it
01:00:30.220shows that your body is going to be something new afterwards in