Channeling Treebeard

What forests do for us and how we are repaying them

Whenever I encounter a big tree, I simultaneously feel compelled and sheepish to place the palm of my hand on the tree's trunk - as if I might connect to some inner spirit. I suspect most of us feel respect for ancient trees, perhaps even awe. Consider that when a big tree falls down, we often tell stories about the tree that once graced their lives. This reverence should probably not come as a surprise - many cultures revered trees in days gone by. Some folks believed trees housed dryads or that their component parts could protect us from evil spirits. British folklore held that a willow tree could uproot itself and stalk travelers.

Beyond our reverence for the giants, we are indebted to trees for the lives we lead. Many medicines originally came from trees, like aspirin and quinine. Trees give us food, lumber, and paper. Trees absorb carbon, thereby impacting the climate and what plants grow where, as well as slowing global warming. Trees clean the air and the water, and prevent soil erosion. Trees provide habitat for 80% of amphibian species, 75% of birds, and 68% of mammals.

And trees are an important part of our economy with the vast majority of humanity using forest products regularly. Over half of global GDP is estimate to depend on ecosystems, with non-timber products from forests alone accounting for 9% of global GDP. Forests support local economies in countless, and uncounted, ways. Deforestation on the other hand leads to the emergence of new diseases and the spread of dengue fever and malaria. The UN estimates that 30% of new diseases, since 1960, are linked to land use change. And yet we neglect the loss of forests in our national wealth calculations. While the FAO calls this neglect risky, I call it madness. Given how many services trees provide us with, our continuing deforestation can only be described as lunacy.

Ten thousand years ago forests covered 57% of arable land - that is 57% of all land that is not ice or rock. By 1900, we’d reduced global forest cover to 48%. As of 2018, forest cover was just 38% of arable land. That means that we’ve lost one third of forests. But this hides a far greater tragedy, for of the four billion acres of forest that remain, only one third of that is old growth forest. Ancient forests have diverse canopies including shorter, taller, skinnier, fatter, crooked, straight, younger, and older trees. This diversity of structure, along with the consequent variety in tree liter, provides a cornucopia of varied habitats. Combine this structural diversity with millennia of evolution and ancient forests host far greater levels of genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity than newer forests.

Old trees, in and of themselves, deserve a pause for wonder. As noted above, they tend to harbor a great deal of life in their crooked crannies - hosting an outsized proportion of biomass and biodiversity. Second, big trees share nutrients and water with younger trees, in essence acting as the forest’s nursemaid. Trees further this support role by sending signals about the changing environment or threats to the plants around them. And even when they die, big trees continue to feed the ecosystem for decades. Beyond their local roles, the largest 1% of trees in a forest hold up to 50% of the carbon in the forest. This has global implications because forests have absorbed about 20% of the carbon we have emitted, significantly slowing global warming. And finally, ancient trees, by their very definition, are resilient. The oldest tree ever recorded is a Bristlecone Pine in California and it is 5072 years, meaning it has survived many extreme weather events, diseases and pests, and untold other stresses. The genes of ancient trees may thus prove key for their species survival, and even the forests viability, as they face the stress of climate change and forest fragmentation.

Another way in which forests affect us is through their impact on climate via the water cycle. Consider, for instance, the Amazon Rainforest. As air flows inland over the rainforest, from the Atlantic Ocean, the moisture laden air is heated and rises as passes over the warmer land. As the air rises, the water in the air condenses to form liquid droplets, and if those droplets get big enough they fall to the earth as rain - saturating the land. With ample water entering their roots, trees open their pores (stomata) to allow in carbon dioxide so that they might photosynthesis. But these open pores mean water is free to escape to the air from the inside of the leaves. The more saturated the land is, the more water is transpired to the atmosphere. This transpired water then blows further inland, is heated, rises, and rains out. There is thus a cycle of rain leading to more rain further inland, and this cycle marches across the Amazon in a soggy game of leap frog providing as much as 70% of rainfall in some parts of the Amazon. Worryingly, deforestation and climate change mean that the Amazon’s water cycle is dangerously close to regime change. The forest may soon be too small to power this water leapfrog and much of the Amazon may die off. Indeed 40% of the existing Amazon already has a rainfall pattern more consistent with savannah than forest, and if the forest does revert to grassland, it may be impossible to push it back to forest.

The loss of the Amazonian rainforest would have global consequences. Amazonian trees house the equivalent to roughly 10 years of global carbon emissions which could be emitted to the atmosphere on a relatively short timescale. The global temperature would rise from this carbon bump would be about 0.25 degrees Celsius, and our goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees would be impossible to achieve. Indeed, all the pathways outlined (by the IPCC) for keeping warming below 1.5 degrees C involve massive reductions in deforestation as well as large scale reforestation. We need more forests, not less, to prevent catastrophic warming.

And yet, even though we recognize the importance of forests, and we’ve managed to slow deforestation, we are still loosing about 10 million hectares of forest every year. The vast majority of this in the tropics. Until the 1920s, most deforestation occurred in temperate regions, but from 1920 onward, deforestation shifted to tropical regions. In the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s, temperate forests actually grew as we exported our consumption to tropical forests. We actually cut down about 20 million hectares of forest every year, but about half that area is reforested either through natural succession or through intentional planting. So the rate of loss of established forest is more than 10 million hectares per year.

World leaders have recognized the importance of forests for a stable climate, biodiversity conservation, poverty elimination, and public health. In 2021, 140 countries pledged to eliminate forest loss by 2030 . These countries included Brazil, China, Russia, the US, the UK, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While previous promises from world leaders to stop deforestation have had mediocre impacts, this new agreement has some promising aspects. Foremost, the agreement includes governments representing 85% of the world’s remaining forests and pledges of 17 billion US dollars. What’s more, 30 of the world’s largest financiers have committed to stop investing in activities that lead to deforestation.

Will this new pledge make any difference? Not without some bite to the signatories’ commitments or if people can still make money by cutting down forests. This suggests two fronts on which we the people can take action. First, we need political will to stop deforestation and this means electing presidents, representatives, governors, and town planners who will take these commitments seriously. For me, this is a central voting issue. It is also effective to let our representatives know we care when relevant legislations arise. One of the easiest ways to do this is to join an organization that will send you alerts for actions at appropriate times, such as the Sierra club. You can also donate money to these kinds of organizations if you have more cash than time.

The other major influence we have on deforestation is of course through our own consumption. Before researching this article, I thought the lifestyle choices that would reduce deforestation were quite simple. We know that agriculture drives 90% of global deforestation with beef alone accounting for 41% of that. The next biggest agricultural driver of deforestation is for palm oil and soybeans plantations which together account for another 18% of global deforestation, with much of soybean production for livestock feed. So I believed that if Americans, who eat about twice the daily recommended amount of protein, cut back on their meat consumption it would make a big dent in reducing deforestation.

But that turns out to be incorrect. While a reduction in American beef consumption will undoubtedly increase forested areas, it will not slow deforestation much at all. That’s because most deforestation occurs in the tropics and most US beef is raised in the US itself. Of the beef grown in Brazil, which alone drives 24% of global deforestation, a full 89% is consumed domestically. Deforestation for beef production in the Amazon is driven by the Brazilians’ appetite for beef, not ours. And US beef production isn’t responsible for large amounts of deforestation at home either, because we converted 46% of our land surface to farms decades ago and we continue to be able to feed ourselves on this land. Despite rising population levels, between 2010 and 2020 the US actually gained about 0.3% of forest area. That said, although our beef addiction doesn’t drive substantial amounts of deforestation at home or abroad, it does prevent reforestation from occurring. We could easily feed ourselves a healthy low-mammal diet and facilitate a reversion of at least 1/2 the farmed area of the US back to natural ecosystems. That would be almost 1/4 of the entire US’ land area allowed to absorb carbon, support biodiversity, and cleanse our water and air. Similarly, the US imports very little soy or palm oil.

So what is an effective strategy for stopping deforestation? A meta analysis of 117 studies on the drivers of deforestation found that protected areas have by far the greatest impact on reducing deforestation. And this is something we can contribute to directly through organizations that aim to either buy up land for conservation or work to get protection for forests. The Rainforest Alliance is one such organization that gets good marks on charity review sites, with 80% of its income going to its projects, and high marks for transparency and compliance with government benchmarks.

As for reforestation, trying to increase forest cover, it’s a case of rounding up the usual suspects. We can eat less meat, eat local whole foods, buy less stuff, and support responsible companies when we do buy. We can funnel our reverence for trees into wasting less, repurposing, and buying used - especially houses and electronic devices. Electronic devices drive deforestation because mining for materials needed for these products opens up large areas for subsequent deforestation. When we do buy wood and paper, we can look out for sustainable forestry certifications such as the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). And while recycling in general has been denigrated of late, recycling wood products is cost and energy effective, and promotes reforestation. Other actions we can take to encourage more trees are to educate others, to advocate for forest protections, and to plant more trees. These are all actions that you may already be mindful of as a climate conscious consumer.

I wish I had a more satisfying one off suggestion to facilitate reforestation, but the barriers to reforestation are quite literally death by a 1000 cuts. The response needs to be 1000 changed behaviors. Perhaps we could instead embrace one change to our attitude, and think about these issues as Treebeard might. Treebeard is an Ent, a race of ambulatory tree like beings from the Lord of the Rings. Treebeard helped take down Saruman’s evil empire that was destroying Fanghorn Forest in order to produce an orchish army. When talking about Saruman’s destruction of Fanghorn, Treebeard said “Curse him, root and branch! Many of those trees were my friends, creatures I had known from nut and acorn. Many had voices of their own that are lost for ever now.” Treebeard or Saruman? Who do you want to channel?