More than timber: Wohlleben, Stamets and Rosolie on the value of old forests
Peter Wohlleben describes a forest as a cooperative community with mother trees that grow slowly and share food, Paul Stamets presents the agarikon, an old-growth forest mushroom that can live for a century, as part of an old-growth library, and Paul Rosolie tells how an expedition stumbled onto untouched ancient forest beside a freshly cut logging road. Side by side, their accounts give readers reasons to value old forests for more than their timber.
What did Wohlleben find when he scraped an old beech stump with his penknife? Show answer
Green living tissue, though the tree had been felled four or five hundred years earlier. He concluded neighboring beeches had fed it through their roots.
According to Wohlleben, why does a forest support its weak trees? Show answer
Same-species neighbors even out differences in strength and photosynthesis by sharing, because the forest is stronger as a group.
How long have the young beeches under Wohlleben's mother trees been waiting, and how old are the mothers? Show answer
The young trees have waited at least eighty years under mother trees about two hundred years old.
Why does slow growth in deep shade benefit a young tree, in Wohlleben's account? Show answer
It lays down dense, tough wood that resists fungi and storms and makes for a long life.
What does Wohlleben say thinning does to a forest? Show answer
It breaks up the family bands, and the young trees that shoot up in the sudden light grow fast, soft and short-lived.
How many insects lived on one old-growth tree in the study Wohlleben cites? Show answer
More than 2,000 insects from 241 species.
Where does the agarikon mushroom grow, and how long can it live? Show answer
Only in old-growth forest, according to Stamets, and it can live for a century.
How did agarikon rank in the defense biosecurity screen Stamets describes? Show answer
Among the top ten against pox viruses, and the only natural product in that group.
Why does Stamets call old-growth forests genomic libraries worth defending? Show answer
Because they hold rare species and strains like agarikon, and less than 1% of old-growth forest remains.
What did the freshly cut logging road mean to Rosolie's expedition? Show answer
It led them to water they badly needed, but it meant the ancient forest they had just walked through was next.
What happened to the loggers after Junglekeepers bought the land? Show answer
They asked to keep working there as rangers, since they had cut the forest for lack of other options.
How much land does Junglekeepers now protect, and what is its goal? Show answer
Almost 100,000 acres, up from 55,000, a third of the way to its goal of 300,000 acres.