Suzanne Simard. Ph.D, is Professor of Forest Ecology and Leader of The Mother Tree Project at the University of British Columbia. She was described by New York magazine as “ a pathbreaking ecologist on interspecies collaboration, tree sentience and nature resilience”. May 6,2021.Her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide.

 

Finding the Mother Tree, Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest is a personal and professional memoir of a young woman’s journey from her origins in the forests of British Columbia combined with a scientific detective story. As a 20 year old in her first seasonal job for a logging company, Suzanne had one question, what was killing the spruce seedlings planted in the clear-cut forests? This puzzle led her to confront the company male hierarchy and scientific establishment’s view of forest management and ecology, and to her growing understanding of the complexity of trees as interdependent circles of life, connected through the Mother Tree centered in underground networks. Her decades -long work is revolutionary and inspiring. Her vivid and accurate description of fungi, mosses, mushrooms and the forest’s underworld not only gives the reader a crash course in botany, but an appreciation for how scientific inquiry can help us understand who we are and our place in the world.

 

Simard’s life story shows how “The Mother Tree nurtures the forest in the way that families and communities influence human societies and how inseparable bonds enable survival for all (sic)” Book jacket.

 

Penny Washbourn, CED member will facilitate this book study.

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Meeting dates:

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Session I Wednesday July 10, 4:00pm-5:30pm PT.

Reading assignment pages 3-100 Introduction, Chaps 1-5

 

Session II Wednesday July 24, 4:00-5:30pm PT

Reading Assignment pages 101-192 Chaps 6-10

 

Session III Wednesday August 14, 4-5:30pm PT

Reading Assignment pages 193-305 Chaps 11-15, Epilogue