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Peter Wohlleben, here's my first question.

Which tree would you like to be, and why?

A beech tree.

Not necessarily because I love beech trees so much,

but because it is our native species, and it has languished a bit of late.

It is also very family-oriented and social.

It likes to be in groups and takes care of its offspring.

I'm fond of family too, so I find beech trees very pleasant.

But they have a hard core.

Me too!

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES

It all started with a terrific bestseller

about a topic that initially sounds about as spectacular

as an essay on sour milk.

It is about trees, about the forest.

I welcome Peter Wohlleben. I'm so glad you're here.

His book about the life of trees has been published in 40 countries.

It currently tops the bestseller list in France,

and for two years now this forester

has been Germany's most-read non-fiction author.

Timewise, forests have existed for 300 million years,

people for 300,000 years and foresters for 300.

Nature did it alone most of that time and still excels at it.

So we can learn a lot from nature,

because it has existed for so much longer than us.

What should human beings learn from nature?

First and foremost, to relax. We don't have to always feel guilty.

Peter, should we all get a photo together on the balcony?

A family portrait?

After my forest tours people kept asking,

"Can I read up on this?" I just said, "Sorry, no."

My wife said, "Peter, write it down." "I don't want to." "Just ten pages."

"No, I don't want to," but eventually I gave in.

"Fine, I'll write about a tour and send it out.

If no publisher wants it, that's that."

Then you wrote it down in your first book.

That wasn't the big bestseller, that was...

That was "The Hidden Life of Trees".

It was the 16th book. I mean, I had never learned to do it.

Good evening. My name is Peter Wohlleben.

I'm delighted I was asked to come here tonight,

although, I'll tell you this now, I never do readings.

That's because I don't really write. That is, I...

It's the truth. I'm not kidding you.

I'm actually a forester.

You started your first job at 27.

It was basically a lifetime government job.

What were your expectations and feelings

when you first went to Hümmel?

I started managing the forest as I had learned

and quickly realized it didn't feel right.

I didn't get why, because I'd learned you have to regenerate the forest,

cut down trees and plant new ones in an endless cycle.

Then I noticed that was the timber industry.

I said, "I quit."

It was a big strain on me, so as a family we discussed

emigrating to Sweden.

Then the mayor said, "Before you take off,

we'll rehire you here,

as a regular employee, not as a civil servant."

I like that you're not dogmatic in your approach.

You tell us things, stories, in a very even-tempered manner.

People like that. It makes you credible.

You look like the type people would invite to a barbecue.

All of that helps.

There.

I'm back in the forest. It was about time again.

Today I'll to show you something different.

Just how social trees are.

We have a very old tree stump here. Here's a nice look at it.

A very old stump that's still alive. The wood is very hard.

FRIENDSHIPS

Years ago in an old beech preserve in my area of forest

I came across a path of odd-looking mossy stones.

Their shape was unusual: gently curved with hollow areas.

I lifted the moss of one of the stones, only to discover tree bark.

It wasn't a stone after all, but old, hard wood.

I had come upon the gnarled remains of an ancient tree trunk.

Only vestiges of the outermost edge remained.

The interior had completely rotted into humus long ago.

But how could the remains have clung to life for so long?

Living cells must have food in the form of sugar.

With no leaves, and thus no photosynthesis, that's impossible.

Clearly, something else was happening with this stump.

It was being assisted by neighboring trees.

The nearby beeches were pumping sugar into it to keep it alive.

Along pathways you can sometimes see trees linking via their root systems.

That an interlinked system does connect

most trees of the same species in the same stand

is known thanks to scientists in the Harz mountains.

Nutrient exchange and helping neighbors in need

seems to be the rule.

And that led to the conclusion that natural forests are superorganisms,

that is, constructs much like ant colonies.

But why are trees such social beings?

Why do they share their food with their own species?

They know one tree doesn't make a forest,

and they can only get very old via community.

Just like us, if we get sick, others nurse us to health again.

That's the only way everyone can happily grow very old together.

I think that is a lovely parallel to us.

LOGGING AND TIMBER EXTRACTION PASSAGE STRICTLY PROHIBITED

Timber!

Take a good look here.

There's lots of natural regeneration.

- Yes. - Good, right over here...

Two deciduous trees, look.

How many trees are there here per hectare?

- In percent? - There's a simple trick.

Kneel or crouch down.

Get down or you won't see anything.

I don't want you to kneel before me.

- From above all you see is moss. - You can't see anything.

There are seedlings all over.

It's mixed. There's only spruce here.

The new forest can only be mixed forest,

but we want a deciduous forest.

The next generation will be a mix The one after that will be deciduous.

In about 500 years.

- So how many do we have? - Six.

Six? I'll count again.

- One... - Eight.

Anyone for more? I'll count. One, two...

What we've found. ...three, four, five.

Six.

We have to be careful not to count the moss too.

Here are more. Seven, eight.

Nine. We haven't counted that one yet.

Go through it slowly. Ten. This one's so easy to overlook.

- It looks like moss. - Yes.

11.

Did we count that one? Let's say yes, so we don't count it twice.

That's 11. Are there anymore?

In front of you, is there anything there?

- You can slip up really quickly. - Nope.

Let's say there are 11 of them. I'm sure we overlooked some.

- That makes how many per hectare? - 110,000.

How many are planted if you do a very expensive new planting?

- 10,000. - And here?

Nature planted ten times more than that, so you're stupid if you plant.

Right. Giddyap!

Giddyap! Giddyap!

Giddyap! Giddyap!

Hey.

Giddyap!

Whoa!

Giddyap!

I can show you this. It's from yesterday.

That must be so strenuous for the horse.

No, the horse weighs a metric ton. It can do it. It's a heavy horse.

But if you work with a tree harvester,

then you can work more effectively, faster.

Yes, faster, but not more effectively.

A harvester may be faster...

Maybe a simple example from Korea.

- Take the next-to-last Samsung phone. - Yes.

- It was built too fast. - Yes.

- Yes. - The battery.

The new one took longer to make, but it turned out better.

The forest is similar.

- It was developed... - They were too fast.

The battery got squashed, I believe.

It went on the market too quickly, and that caused major damage.

It is the same with the harvester. It's fast, but it does a lot of damage.

I should've said VW developed its new diesel engines too quickly.

Please translate that, because that would've been more polite.

HÜMMEL FOREST ACADEMY THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES

Hello, good morning. Peter Wohlleben. Nice to have you here.

Even as a small child, when I was six, I wanted to be a conservationist.

After school I decided on forestry, because I figured

a forester is a guardian of the forest.

That's what I imagined. I had no clue. I had no forestry background.

When I finished I started managing a forest.

I quickly noticed it wasn't for me.

Clear-cutting, heavy machinery, insecticides...

There's ever more of that.

In forestry they like to talk about "tending forests."

That's a public relations term.

It's like a butcher saying, "I tend to animals."

Then I'd say, "No, you don't."

You can't tend to a forest.

Harvesting and producing is legitimate. So you know, I'm not against using wood.

You're sitting on wooden chairs. I write books, using paper from trees.

That's okay.

But if you want to do the forest good,

then you have to refrain from sawing trees down.

Hands in your pockets and watch is how you get virgin forest.

Not if you start sawing. You can't tend a forest.

80 percent of Germany's land was covered with ancient beech forests.

And nature keeps going back to that.

You can't see it anymore. These trees are a couple.

If you look up there you'll see they're not interfering with each other.

If you look you'll see the thick branches go outward.

Is that out of deference or lack of space?

They do that vis-à-vis other trees. It's deference.

Some trees intertwine. There's enough light for that.

We don't call them a couple. That's far too romantic.

It's a group.

- Yes... - A group of two.

Exactly. A marriage is a group of two.

A group of two, and then the group is thinned.

So either both of them or none at all.

That's what we learned in our studies. It's the unromantic term.

So a little beech tree starts to grow.

It grows slowly. It's not meant to grow quickly.

In the first 200 to 300 years...

That's how long a tree's youth lasts here.

If it all goes well, that is.

An international study shows

the slower the youth phase is, the older the tree gets.

Come over here and look.

See these small knots on the branches. You can count them.

One for every year.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, etc.

It's 15, 16 years old.

This tree, how old do you think it is?

- 50? 100? - Over a 100.

- This is ten years right here. - Oh!

"Oh!" is right. Let's just say 100 certainly isn't exaggerated.

A conservative estimate. 100 years old.

And the big ones? How old are they?

The big ones are roughly 150, 160.

You may say, "Hold on! There's a huge difference."

The big trees grew after a clear-cut. Those trees grow like crazy.

You can compare it with pigs.

In factory farms pigs are ready for slaughter in six months.

If you take them to an animal shelter... We work with a foundation that did that.

They keel over after a year, two max. They grow so fast they're already dead.

The same goes for trees.

They grow extremely fast, but they don't get old.

They're meant to go to the sawmill.

As far as profit is concerned, you can certainly say

this tree hasn't done much good in its 100 years.

But from an ecological standpoint it's the right approach.

And that's how it goes.

If you want to do something for the small trees

you have to leave the old ones standing.

So that nothing happens to them along the way...

the parent tree connects to the roots of the little tree

and feeds it with liquid sugar.

You can actually say it is suckled.

The best thing to do is leave these families together.

That's how trees should grow.

What you see over there is an industrial plantation.

All the same age. They grew up as orphans.

Fast, fast, fast.

They'll eventually all be cut and sold, and then it all starts over again.

That's the issue... It's the gamekeeper. As you know, hunters don't walk.

Let's talk about wildlife management strategy.

The trees coordinate when they flower. Beeches and oaks do.

Within their own species, that is.

This year they have lots of blossoms.

They coordinate when they'll bloom over hundreds of miles.

No one knows how.

LOVE

Love.

Whereas conifers send their seeds into the world once a year,

deciduous trees have a totally different strategy.

Before they bloom, they come to an agreement.

Should they kick things off in spring?

Or would it be better to hold off for a year or two?

Grown trees prefer to bloom all at once.

That allows the genes of many different trees to really mix.

But deciduous trees take another factor into consideration.

Wild boar and deer.

These animals crave beechnuts and acorns,

which help them put on a nice layer of fat for the winter.

They're so crazy for these nuts

because they contain as much as 50 percent oil and starch,

more than any other food available.

Whole areas forests are often picked clean by autumn,

so, come spring, hardly any beech and oak trees sprout.

That's why the trees agree in advance.

If they don't bloom every year,

then the boars and deer cannot count on it.

It helps control birth rates.

The pregnant animals must endure a long stretch with little food,

so many piglets don't survive.

When all the beeches or oaks finally do bloom and bear fruit at once

the few herbivores aren't able to devour everything,

so there are always enough undiscovered seeds left to sprout.

Can you do that in the forest?

No.

- It scares away the animals. - No, it doesn't.

So many adults say that to you, but it's nonsense.

Or I wouldn't have said to do it.

When you scream like that the animals know,

"Those are kids. They won't harm us."

They know you don't go around with guns to shoot animals, right?

- They know that. - Kids aren't allowed to do that.

Most adults aren't either.

And maybe the ones who do it don't need to do it either.

The animals don't really get scared when you're loud.

When you play catch and scream in the forest, they're relaxed.

There are deer not too far from here.

- But you don't see them. They hide. - In marshes and stuff?

No, they might be 50 meters away in the bushes.

They know, "They're loud, they're not hunters," and stay put.

If you make a racket running, they run...

- Should we do it again? - Yeah, sure.

This is private forest here.

Here too. This is bark beetle infested too.

There.

All of this has to go.

- Here. - It looks pretty desolate.

Every species is susceptible to a parasite

that specializes in infesting it.

You hear a lot about the spruce bark beetle.

That's the reason why we are now...

We only have a few spruce plantations from our predecessors,

but after such a dry, hot summer, they're full of spruce beetles.

The conifers aren't from here. They're from northern boreal forests.

They need a cold, wet climate. They have a short growing period.

They're planted here, where it's warmer

and there's not enough water in summer, so they become parched.

They're susceptible to the bark beetle.

The male always bores its way in first.

One gung-ho beetle goes in first and scopes out the spruce.

Can it defend itself? A healthy spruce defends itself with a drop of resin.

If it's so dry that the spruce lacks the water to that,

it bores into it and sees nothing's coming.

And then he gives a chemical signal that dinner is served.

So what we do with the infested trees that will die anyway

is cut them down and debark them, so the bark beetle can't keep breeding.

We don't want to have bare spots in the spruce plantations.

New beech trees need shade.

Now, spruces won't link roots with beeches,

but they do provide shade and a hint of forest climate.

So we make sure the infested trees are cut down

and immediately removed from the forest or debarked.

That ensures a smooth transition from plantation to natural forest.

Otherwise spruces will grow on the barren spots.

We don't want that. Climate change is in progress.

Most conifers in Germany will disappear in the next 20 years.

You hear, "We need them. They're the bread-and-butter trees."

By the way, 57 percent of spruce trees fall victim to storms or bark beetles.

So spruces normally topple over or are devoured by beetles.

What kind of forestry is that?

That's like a carmaker crushing every other car that comes off the line.

A practice that ends in disaster 57 percent of the time.

You have to say, "I'll try a new system."

The bread-and-butter tree is simply unpalatable.

THE LANGUAGE OF TREES

Whether beech, spruce or oak,

all trees register pain when critters start nibbling at them.

And they fight back against being eaten.

They send scents through the canopy.

They "scream" for help, activating an arsenal of chemical defenses.

When a caterpillar takes a hearty bite of a leaf

the tissue around the bite changes.

The tissue sends out electrical signals,

much as human tissue does when it has been injured.

However, the signal is not transmitted in a matter of milliseconds,

it travels at only a centimeter a minute.

Accordingly, it takes another hour

for the compounds to reach the leaves

and spoil the pests' meal.

Trees live in the slow lane. It seems they stay there even in danger.

This slow tempo does not mean

the individual parts function in isolation from one another.

If the roots are experiencing trouble, that info is sent throughout the tree,

which can trigger

the leaves to release scent compounds.

Not just any,

but compounds tailored to the task at hand.

Trees can identify some insects

and know just what species they are up against.

Trees aren't some organic robots or timber producing machines.

If we look more closely we discover they are sentient beings

that pursue their own objectives.

TREE OR NOT TREE?

"What exactly is a tree?

It is defined as 'a woody plant with a trunk from which branches grow'."

So the main shoot must be dominant and grow steadily upward,

or the plant is a shrub

with many branches originating from one rootstock.

It gets more complicated when a new trunk grows from a stump.

That is common in many forests.

Centuries ago charcoal burners cut deciduous trees to stumps

to make charcoal.

Are these trunks now young trees, or are they actually 1,000 years old?

This is a question scientists asked

who are researching ancient spruce in Sweden's Dalarna province.

The oldest spruce has grown a carpet of flat, scrubby brush

that surrounds its single small trunk.

It all belongs to one tree.

The tree's roots were analyzed using the C14 dating method.

It revealed

the tree is an absolutely unbelievable 9,550 years old.

Although individual shoots were younger,

those from recent centuries were not deemed stand-alone trees

but part of the larger whole.

The root ensured the survival of the organism,

withstood major climatic changes

and has sprouted trunks time and time again.

The root has stored up millennia of experiences

and that experience has allowed it to survive to this day.

Good morning.

Today I'm visiting Old Tjikko, the world's oldest tree.

It is nearly 10,000 years old.

And that humbles me.

I am humbled because of the extreme longevity of nature,

and because trees withstand so much.

This little spruce has endured many phases of climate change.

It has experienced so much.

The only thing it cannot withstand is a chainsaw.

A SENSE OF TIME

...despite severe changes in climate...

Old Tjikko had survived to this day.

Morning.

Yes.

Morning.

Look. Do you want something?

Come here.

Come here. Come here.

Look here. Yes.

Wait.

Oh, it's hard.

Right, now come here. Come on.

That's good.

In these times of dramatic environmental upheaval,

our yearning for undisturbed, intact nature is increasing.

But no forest in Germany is undisturbed.

You can just grab the earth from the floor of an ancient forest.

You'd break your fingernails in the floor of a managed forest.

Soil from a normal forest is crumbly and you see a mass of creatures in it.

Then a harvester, with a nice name like "Hannibal" or "King Tiger,"

drives over the loose earth and packs it tight two meters deep.

The pressure exerted on the ground is what does the damage.

A "pressure bulb" forms under the tire.

So the earth is compressed when the vehicle goes over it.

The size of the pressure bulb depends on tire width.

The wider, the deeper the bulb.

It goes down especially deep when you have wide tires.

You might be familiar with sitting outside a café in a city

and when a truck or a bus drives by your cup rattles.

The vibration shakes it so it compacts down deep.

The pressure the tire exerts per square centimeter can be low,

it still damages the soil way down deep.

What geologists say about soil regeneration at depths below 20 cm means

most compacted soil will recover after the next ice age.

When a harvester rolls over soil

its capacity to store water decreases up to 95 percent.

That means instead of 25 cubic meters

the soil only stores two to three cubic meters.

Now we come back to what happens in September.

Why does that happen? The trees die of thirst.

OFF THE CHAIN

Originally most of the land in Europe was covered in primordial forests

in which beech trees predominated.

Primordial forests fell to axes centuries ago,

to make way for our ancestors' plows.

At the latest in the Middle Ages, the "age of wood,"

the rest of the forests were in for it too.

It wasn't until 1800 that ideas changed and the forests returned.

Forests?

They were and still are plantations,

groups of even-aged trees all of one species

and only vaguely reminiscent of nature.

Spruces and pines native to high mountains

were brought down to lower climes.

They were planted in orderly rows and clear-cut 100 years later.

So many generations have grown used to these dismal monocultures

that we don't know what a real forest looks like.

BIAŁOWIEŻA NATIONAL PARK

Ideas of what ancient European forest looks like are often off the mark.

It is frequently assumed scrubland would take over

creating an impenetrable mess of thickets.

But natural reserves left untouched by human hands for over 100 years

prove the opposite.

Virgin forests are very easy to walk through.

There are merely some thick, dead tree trunks on the ground.

There are very few noticeable changes within a human lifetime.

Reserves where cultivated forests are left to return to a virgin state

slow nature down.

Yeah.

Nature? Why do we need nature?

- Yes, that's a... - We're sitting around here.

- Maybe we don't need it. - Yes, that's a big misunderstanding.

Nature conservancy isn't protecting nature.

We're protecting ourselves.

Because we can't destroy nature.

It will always recover on its own.

- It may take... - It defends itself?

Well, it can restore itself.

It may take 1,000 or even 10,000 years.

That's no time at all for nature.

But it's too long for us.

Look at Chernobyl.

The forest will come back.

It would just be nice if we're still here.

- If we could see that happen. - Yes.

- Do you want to come... - Yes.

Do you always go around carrying a pine cone along with you?

Yes, that was... I don't know if he's here.

A little boy at the entrance gave it to me.

Is he still here?

He drew me a wonderful picture too.

And that really warmed my heart.

Up until now I've walked around without carrying a pine cone with me.

But that changed as of today.

Well done. Thank you.

Why is it so much harder for us to understand plants than animals?

It is due to evolutionary history,

which split us off from vegetation very early on.

All our senses developed differently, so that we have to

use our imaginations to get even the slightest idea

what is going on inside trees.

CAN YOU HEAR THE TREES TALKING?

Trees are extremely slow.

That is why they seem to be immobile beings,

only slightly more mobile than rocks.

Their entire life spans are at least five times as long as ours.

Active movements,

such as growing shoots or the unfolding of leaves,

take weeks and months.

Leaves dropping in fall and unfolding in spring

are completely normal phenomena in many latitudes.

But, if you look carefully, it is a miraculous event,

because trees need something very important for this: a sense of time.

How do they know that winter is coming

or that rising temperatures aren't merely a brief interlude

but an announcement of spring's arrival?

When a tree loses its leaves is indeed a question of character.

A QUESTION OF CHARACTER

On the road between my village, Hümmel,

and the next settlement stand three oaks.

They grow unusually close together.

Mere inches separate the 100-year-old trunks.

That makes them ideal subjects for me to study

because they all share identical environmental conditions.

If the oaks behave differently,

it must be due to their innate characteristics.

And they do indeed behave differently.

The oak on the left already turns color

while the other two trees remain completely green.

It takes a week or two

for the other two to enter into dormancy as well.

But, if conditions are identical,

what accounts for the differences in their behavior?

There are often unseasonably warm days in the fall,

and this creates a dilemma for the oaks.

Should they use these mild days to photosynthesize

and to stash away a few extra calories?

Or should they play it safe and shed their leaves

in case there's a sudden frost that forces them into dormancy?

Clearly, each of the trees decides differently.

Two of the oaks are a bit more gutsy, and the third is a bit more anxious,

or, to put it more positively, more sensible.

Good morning.

It's still February, but the first trees are awakening from dormancy.

And that's clear to see on this tree, this pussy willow.

The catkins, the flower clusters, are already coming out.

The question is: how do they do that?

Because sprouting such buds requires water pressure within the tree.

Common theory says it is transpiration.

Water evaporates from the leaves,

causing a vacuum in the trunk which then sucks in water.

But this tree does not have a single green leaf on it,

yet it's at full pressure.

How does it do that?

I believe that the tree has an active pumping mechanism.

But that has yet to be discovered.

Frantisek Baluska from the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Botany

at the University of Bonn believes,

with colleagues, that the root apex of a tree is a brain-like organ.

As the root probes into the earth it can perceive stimuli.

The researchers measure waves, which the tree processes

and which cause it to alter its behavior.

Yes, then we published a paper showing

that these 200 Hz, the sound waves,

induce growth from the root to the source.

That means they grow towards the source of the 200 Hz waves.

200 Hz is more or less the noise flowing water makes.

- That's useful for the root. - Of course.

So do the roots think there's water there,

or do they follow the lead of other roots?

No, if you do it with one root it will do the same thing.

So it is definitely sensing the 200 Hz.

And they're growing right towards the flow of water.

Would you call that hearing? They have no ears.

- They don't have ears. - Of course not.

No, they don't, but the entire plant practically works like a huge ear.

On the level of metaphors,

people often ask me this, as a kind of trick question.

"Why do you humanize everything?"

For example, if I say,

"Tree roots can 'hear' sound waves."

FOREST GUIDE TRAINING

First I say "perceive,"

then I say, "It's similar to hearing."

I don't think you can humanize nature too much.

Am I supposed to say it in "tree language"?

I can't. I can't speak it and don't understand it.

I don't know how to do that.

We inherently speak metaphorically.

I think the problem is also that people like to ridicule it.

It's basically portrayed as an affront that one even gets the idea

to compare a tree

to a person.

That really is disparaging in its way. Sometimes that momentarily cripples you.

None of us are scientists. They have an honor code.

They don't express things emotionally. That's legitimate.

Maybe in 100 years it'll change, but that's how it's done now.

I myself am not a scientist. Are any of you?

You are. And what field are you in?

- Landscape ecology. - Right.

I'm sure you speak differently to colleagues than to laypeople.

Laypeople don't understand it. That's the aim of my tours and books.

I'd like laypeople to understand it.

Have we already spoken about Frantisek Baluska?

He's investigating how plants experience pain.

He says very clearly, "Yes, they feel pain."

And they reflect upon it.

They produce pain inhibiting substances.

They don't just react to a stimulus, like an injury.

In certain situations they produce painkillers.

That only makes sense if they can reflect on pain.

But that is an affront to people, and that's not scientific anymore.

Protesting to that is being emotional, not scientific.

And you are just the messengers.

I am too. I didn't do the studies either.

I just translate them so that everyone knows:

"Oh, trees can feel pain."

And people in forestry don't attack the University of Bonn, they attack me.

It's the messenger who gets killed. That's how it was in antiquity too.

It's not the message that's the problem,

but rather the messenger who is.

STREET KIDS

Young trees are handled in nurseries for years

before being moved to their final locations.

The diameter of the root ball,

which in nature is roughly six meters for a three-meter tree,

is trimmed down to about 50 centimeters.

This doesn't keep the tree healthy, it just makes it easier to handle.

The brain-like structures and root tips are cut off during root ball pruning.

Ouch!

As if this intervention ruins the tree's sense of direction,

it stops growing roots downwards and forms a flat plate of roots.

This severely restricts its ability to find water and nutrients.

City trees are the forest's street kids.

They get a shock upon trying to establish roots.

The street hinders their growth,

as do pipes under sidewalks and earth compacted during construction.

They have to put up with more than that.

The urban microclimate is marked by heat storing asphalt and concrete.

That makes for extremely dry air

loaded with exhaust pollution.

Many of the companions

that ensure the trees' well-being in the forest are missing.

The massive stress and pollution

mean that most of them are unable to grow old.

I thought, "You only have..."

I thought, "23 years till I retire.

Will I manage to get this or that part of the forest into that state?"

In retrospect, I have to say that was just crazy.

- Given the pace of the forest. - Yes.

The pace the forest moves at is one thing,

but the establishment changes even slower than a forest

and is far more resistant.

You changed the state of things, exactly as you wanted to.

And you know you're doing that because the empire is striking back.

- That's right. - You're really part of a big movement.

So you're part of that big movement,

someone who uses a successful book, an idea and you yourself as a new tool.

The others have to fight that.

- Before it keeps growing. - Yes.

I have something I ask myself to deal with my own stress.

I always say that I have to revert to a vegetative nervous system.

Where you lay somewhere and inhale and exhale without thinking.

Or you go to the sauna, and after doing the hot and then cold

you notice the thumping, you notice your body.

I do that in the tub. I'm grateful when hotels have bathtubs.

I lay there for 30 minutes, sleep for five, and just relax.

- I can't drown because I'm so tall. - True.

No danger.

I just sleep for five minutes. I can do it before talk shows too.

I can get so relaxed and chill out, so it is exactly that.

- How long are you here until today? - Until 5:00 p.m.

Then you'll need to take a shower, right?

I'll touch you, if that's all right.

We can learn social behavior from them.

A tree knows, "I'm not a forest. I won't manage alone."

By working together trees achieve far more and are able to get very old.

In today's political landscape nationalism and egotism are on the rise.

We can all see that doesn't really do anyone any good.

Trees wouldn't do that. They wouldn't elect Trump.

UNITED WE STAND, DEVIDED WE FALL

Trees are very social beings and help each other out.

But that isn't quite enough for survival in the forest ecosystem.

That's why trees paired up with fungi millions of years ago.

Fungi are peculiar things.

They don't fit our classification of living beings into animals or plants

Their cell walls are made of chitin,

which makes them more like insects.

It is a substance never found in plants.

Moreover, they cannot photosynthesize,

but rely on organic connections with other living beings

that they can feed on.

Over decades, a fungus's underground cottony web

mycelium, keeps expanding.

The thin threads permeate the earth and create a very densely woven matt.

A teaspoon of forest soil contains miles of these threads, or hyphae.

This fungal network transmits signals from tree to tree,

helping them exchange information

about insects, droughts and other dangers.

Fungi work like fiber optic cables for the internet.

Even scientists now talk of a "Wood Wide Web"

that traverses our forests.

Such a network of connections has its price.

As we know, these organisms depend on other species for food,

so they demand payment in sugar and other carbohydrates,

which their partner tree must deliver.

They demand up to a third of the food a tree produces for their services.

In exchange for the rich sugary reward, fungi provide a few free benefits,

such as filtering out heavy metals.

The sequestered pollutants turn up each fall in the pretty fruiting bodies,

the porcini and bolete mushrooms, we take home with us.

To the right, towards the farm track,

and then continue on

along the old federal highway towards the forest.

Straight ahead. Straight ahead.

ARMIN LASCHET THE LIGNITE JUNKIE

Hambach Forest stays! Hambach Forest stays!

- Hambach... - ... stays!

- Hambach... - ... stays!

- Hambach, Hambach, Hambach... - ... stays, stays, stays!

Each and every one of you is special,

but a few people need to be singled out.

Someone very important is about to speak.

If Peter is anywhere nearby he should head this way.

Not every Peter. I think he knows who I mean.

Probably Germany's most famous forester.

I welcome Peter Wohlleben. It's great that you came.

I asked him and it was clear to him that he'd say something.

Here's the mic. Please hold it close to your mouth.

This is an unfamiliar situation for me. I usually see only trees.

I'll just imagine you're Ents, like in the Lord of the Rings.

The tree shepherds. I've already seen one. There he is!

I've obviously been following the debate in the news and newspapers.

I've noticed it's always about rights.

"We have the right, and we have to assert it."

You have to say, "Dear Mrs. Merkel, what went on in Fukushima?"

After the disaster there a nuclear power producer

suddenly lost its rights.

Climate change is just as dangerous as Fukushima.

It's time to prioritize a greater right, the right of the people,

over individual contracts with a very profit-minded company.

But we really have to thank the people

who've been in the forest trying to protect trees for three weeks.

FIRST THE FOREST DIES, THEN US! AND YOUR KIDS TOO

I've been talking to forestry officials for 20 years now.

That really destroys you,

because they don't want to change things.

In the long run, of course. But not right now.

It's our country and democracy is this,

and not just ticking a box every four years.

We are here! We are loud!

Because they want to cut Hambach down!

When I negotiate with the people from the forest authority...

For about a year now I've been telling them we're in contact.

And I've told them that you're taking on the position

as a volunteer advisor.

That you're doing that for our tribe.

And I always mention to them that it's about time they read the book.

It's funny, because everyone I talk to who isn't in forestry

tells me they know the book.

And if you talk to forestry officials or people in forest management

it's almost like it's the "dirty book."

"Yes, I've heard of it, but..."

Everyone knows it, everyone's read it, but none of them admit it.

And you really shouldn't underestimate

the position that you have.

Let's see to it that we make good use of it.

I have the flight times here.

If everything goes well, we'll arrive in Vancouver at 2:45 p.m.

And then, I don't even know...

We're ignorant about this...

Then we have to go from there to Vancouver Island.

That's right. Do we take a ferry or is it a domestic flight?

Nice. I really like this.

I'm really happy about this.

You can see how big of a cut that would be.

That's a huge hole.

- This area. - That's right.

IN THE REALM OF DARKNESS

The dead remains of a tree are vital to a forest's life cycle.

For centuries it took in nutrients and stored them in its wood and bark,

making it a precious treasure for its children.

However, they cannot readily access these delicacies.

They need the help of other organisms.

As soon as the broken trunk hits the earth

a relay race to the banquet begins for thousands of fungi and insects.

Each is specialized in different stages of decay

and in specific parts of the tree.

The wide variety of animal life often plays out in a microcosm.

There are more life forms in a handful of forest soil

than there are people on the planet.

These creatures are a kind of terrestrial plankton.

They are the first link in the food chain

and act as a huge recycling factory.

All of these creatures impact the soil,

transform it and enrich it, making it very valuable to the trees.

Take, for example, beetle mites,

of which there are over 1,000 known species in Europe.

They are less than a millimeter long

and look like spiders with inadvisably short legs.

The leaves and bits of bark off trees would pile up meters deep

if it weren't for a hungry army of microscopic creatures.

Whether it's rotting wood or dead snails,

everything has a beetle mite adapted to consume it.

They appear everywhere birth and decay intersect,

and, thus, must be considered essential components of the ecosystem.

In order for regeneration to take place at all,

nature reserves of pristine forests

free from any human interference are needed.

In places like these the diverse soil life can survive

and they can act as nuclei for recovery in surrounding areas.

If we want to use forests in the battle against climate change,

we have to let them grow old.

I'm utterly surprised

that it didn't rise up into the crowns, at least for the most part.

Given the heat, and the wind here must've been crazy.

Yes, that's fascinating to observe.

The fire came from the valley over there and advanced up this way

and it got even more intense.

The stands up there are where we had the crown fires.

Here the needles were actually still on the trees

and didn't start raining down until a few weeks later.

It really is a magnificent starting point

to get some structural diversity in here that we didn't have.

If they don't clear this away, plow it up and grade it,

but leave the trees as they are.

Although we are considering knocking some over

to see if the rotting wood

can help retain moisture faster.

As far as the makeup, a layer of ash like this...

That's interesting,

because it actually sealed off the soil for quite a long time.

There's quite a bit of moisture in this right here.

Underneath it's dry. This is different.

- It's better there. - The sand is moist.

But last year precipitation didn't permeate this at all.

But now we actually do have favorable conditions here

to start things off again.

- Why would you plow this? - Yes.

Any seed that falls here won't have a hard time growing.

That's right. And it will surely happen in the right order.

The pioneer species will arrive first.

Morning. I'm where the big forest fire was in Treuenbrietzen.

600 hectares of forest burned here last year.

Six square kilometers burned down.

It was a plantation fire, so a pine wasteland burned down.

And what did they do with it?

Well, the city at least

left whole sections of its half scorched forest standing to retain biomass.

And the bordering private forest,

with the state's support and on the state's advice,

chopped down the remaining trees,

plowed everything, drove over it and destroyed the soil.

And what did they plant then? Three guesses...

Pine trees! It went so well before, let's do it again.

I believe these little trees will be dried up in 20 years.

Like I said, on state foresters' advice and with ministry support.

Congratulations, Brandenburg!

Commander of the world.

It certainly is nice to see rotting wood in various stages of decay.

April was dry, but that's damp.

And you can see, you can squeeze drops of water out of it.

And we could do the same last year with the sample we took in August.

In the rotting wood. You see what it contributes.

As far as how a virgin forest in Germany would look,

this would be the closest thing.

Yes.

The structural abundance, with old trees

and the trees that are dying slowly.

They don't just die, fall over and that's it.

That's prolonged over decades.

He refuses to abdicate. His crown has broken off, but...

- This is one of my favorite trees. - Yes.

Isn't it great? That splintered off. Now it's becoming a trunk again.

Whoa!

Good morning. Today, something nice from the hallowed halls.

Here is a tree.

It broke off on top and formed a second crown.

Another crown. But the tree wasn't thin like this.

In reality it was a very thick tree that broke off.

And here it is.

It really is a nice, thick trunk.

It left this splintered-off part.

You can see it here on the other side. It broke off here.

You can see these bulges and ledges forming on it.

It may close up on this side

and then go on to form a new tree.

A thinner tree, but it's not done. That's how tough beeches are.

Even if this one looks all rotten and decayed and is broken off,

this tree is still partially standing, and is forging on.

This is my favorite secondary crown.

It is a symbol of resilience and of...

the possibility such a system affords trees

to keep starting over again and again.

When I started my career as a forester

I knew as much about the hidden life of trees

as a butcher knew about animals' feelings.

I suddenly discovered a myriad of wonders.

No Limits Media 2020 Subtitles: N. Fritz et al.