What Trees Teach Us about Community and Crisis

As we seek to grow resilient communities, let’s look to the forest for wisdom

Today is Arbor Day in the U.S. — a tree-planting and tree-honoring tradition that began nearly 150 years ago. Throughout history, humans have recognized trees as pillars of strength. They provide the oxygen, nourishment, and resources for life on earth.

But the secret to trees’ strength isn’t simply that they’re the largest and longest-living plants on the planet. They have managed to survive crisis — while helping other creatures to do the same — because they’re literally rooted in community. Today, as our planet faces countless crises, trees have much to teach us.

Far from loners, trees grow as a tight-knit group, ntertwined at the roots. But only recently did Western scientists catch on to their communication. Trees in a forest can “talk,” exchanging nutrients, carbon, and water through mycorrhizal networks — a sort of underground internet  built by soil fungi. (Some biologists nickname it the “wood wide web.”)

Forests depend on trees’ vast social networks. Older, well-connected “Mother trees” are the community cornerstones that share extra nutrients with younger ones that need them. If two trees are friends, they keep their branches from growing in each other’s way. Collectively, they can regulate the microclimate and air temperature to be just how they like it: cool and damp. Togetherness is a tree’s ticket for survival. Read More