I am highly anticipating the release of the English translation of The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben, which is scheduled for the middle of next month. I have not yet read all of the reviews, so I cannot say too much at the moment, but the chatter about it is exciting and it is a number one best seller in Germany.
Wohlleben is a forester with many years of experience, so he writes not primarily as a philosopher or a scientist, but as a practitioner, although his work promises to draw on the first two fields as well as the one with which he is more familiar.
One intriguing finding, which I am eager to read more about, is the social nature of trees. Fittingly, Wohlleben takes as his subject not the tree so much as the forest; in other word, his ontological unit of interest is the collective and not the individual. One provocative review, or perhaps Wohlleben himself, likens the solitary tree to a child who is left to fend for him or herself on the street, a weakening condition that shortens the tree's life. Like humans, trees are social beings and need to be in the company of others to thrive. As others have noted, parent trees communicate with their offspring, and as Wohlleben apparently describes, they send special nurturance to those who appear weak and sickly.
I am really looking forward to reading The Hidden Life of Trees, which you can preorder on Amazon and elsewhere in hardback or digital edition, as well as in the form of an audio recording.
Wohlleben is a forester with many years of experience, so he writes not primarily as a philosopher or a scientist, but as a practitioner, although his work promises to draw on the first two fields as well as the one with which he is more familiar.
One intriguing finding, which I am eager to read more about, is the social nature of trees. Fittingly, Wohlleben takes as his subject not the tree so much as the forest; in other word, his ontological unit of interest is the collective and not the individual. One provocative review, or perhaps Wohlleben himself, likens the solitary tree to a child who is left to fend for him or herself on the street, a weakening condition that shortens the tree's life. Like humans, trees are social beings and need to be in the company of others to thrive. As others have noted, parent trees communicate with their offspring, and as Wohlleben apparently describes, they send special nurturance to those who appear weak and sickly.
I am really looking forward to reading The Hidden Life of Trees, which you can preorder on Amazon and elsewhere in hardback or digital edition, as well as in the form of an audio recording.
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