Forest Web is a Facebook page which was founded in 2007 by a local group of conservation activists in Cottage Grove, Oregon. There original purpose was to oppose the Western Oregon Plan Revision {WOPR} on behalf of the old growth forests on BLM lands in Lane County.
Today Forest Web continues to be a grassroots organisation engaged in the preservation not only of local stands, but of all old growth forests throughout the Pacific Northwest.
“Forests precede civilisations and deserts follow them…”. This simple quotation lives at the heart of Forest Web. If we want to change this sad truth we need to change the concepts of how we relate to the natural world on which all of us depend. Is a forest merely a source of timber resources to exploit? Should the true value of a forest only be calculated in board feet? Can we reclaim the words ‘manage’ and ‘sustainable’ so they refer to how to preserve a healthy forest rather than how to run a productive tree farm.
Phoenix Rising out of the Tree of Life by Dreamagic on Deviant Art.
I can’t stay, mother I love you, but I wasn’t born to please you I wasn’t born to make you happy or give your life meaning I wasn’t born to rot under your wings like an unhatched egg
I can’t stay, teacher I wasn’t born to be put into your boxes to think along your lines or to memorize your facts I was born to think independently
I can’t stay, my love I wasn’t born to satisfy your needs to take care of you or to hide in your arms I wasn’t born to make myself smaller or to be taken for granted
I can’t stay, boss I wasn’t born to make money for others I wasn’t born to follow orders or to repeat the same day over and over again I wasn’t born for boredom
I can’t stay, master I wasn’t born to follow your ideas of what truth is or to live according to your dogmas I was born to find my own truth and make my own rules
I was born to meet life full on To get lost on Andean trails To be seduced by mysterious men To meet different faces, places and cultures to be out in the jungle all night To run with wolves To be swept off my feet To be taken by storm To be heartbroken Devastated Stunned Shocked Lost Thrown into the deep
I was born to get my hands dirty To get sand in my mouth Mud on my clothes Thorns under my feet I was born to jump into the abyss
I was born to meet aliens To do rituals To be cracked open in ceremony To go beyond time and space To welcome magic To totally lose myself
I was born to feel everything To taste everything The bitter taste of sorrow The foul taste of deceit The sweet taste of love
I was born to learn how to handle change gracefully I was born to know the truth to learn how to fly
I was born to learn how to speak the language of love How to unchain my heart How to shed everything How to let go of all expectations I was born to learn how it feels to lose everything except what really matters I was born to live a life that would strip away everything that wasn’t real that wasn’t true that wasn’t me
Rebirth of the Phoenix, unknown artist.
I am a phoenix I am born to spread my wings and fly towards the sun To burn up and turn to ashes To fall down to earth and rise up again
When I am old I will be proud of my scars My wrinkles My memories My stories My wisdom My freedom
I was born to be free And therefore, I can’t stay.
In the center of every forest is a well of sweet water. By the time you reach it, you will be desperate with thirst. You will have been walking through the day and into the night, and the words will have been growing darker around you, and you will have seen no water at all.
And then, a clearing lit by silver light. You do not see her standing in the shadows. You cup your shaking hands and dip into the world. But a bony hand grasps yours.
Shaken with surprise, you look up. She is veiled. From beneath the veil she speaks. Her voice is full of the mystery of endings. She asks what you want. Water, you begin to say.
Then your heart is flooded with memory and need. Do you remember losses and pain, driven days when you burned with yearning, bleak hopelessness of abandoned dreams. Your parched throat will not let you speak. And there is not time enough to answer, for what you desire has become immeasurably and inexpressibly vast.
She is waiting. You stand wordless before her. She opens her arms to you, and suddenly she is all that you desire: arms to hold you, a breast to weep upon, a murmuring voice to sing in your ear, a softness that is more comfort than you have ever known. She is sweet water in the dark forest. She is abandoned dreams restored. She is all the world at once, and all the time you need.
FatFace are proud to announce their ground-breaking 75-year partnership with the National Forest; a celebration of their long-term commitment to sustainability and an exciting, inspiring step for everyone at FatFace…
TO BE CARBON NEUTRAL BY 2025
Because FatFace are passionate about creating a positive impact on our climate by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide they’re releasing. In addition to reducing as much carbon as possible, they’ve teamed up with the National Forest on an innovative offsetting project that will minimise their carbon emissions and create something truly special…
Introducing
THEIR WOODLAND ESCAPE
“Our forest will be home to 60,000 trees, set amongst the scenic countryside and rolling landscapes of the National Forest site – beautiful woodland growing in the heart of the UK, across parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Staffordshire. It’s our chance to create a cleaner, brighter future for all. And a forest we can experience and enjoy for generations to come”.
On the 26th November 2021, some of their FatFace Crew travelled up from our Hampshire head office to begin their journey of planting 60,000 trees over 100 acres in Leicestershire.
“This project is an important cornerstone of the FatFace strategy to become carbon neutral by 2025. The National Forest are a great, like-minded partner where we have managed to create something that will make a meaningful long-term change to the environment.” Will Crumbie – CEO, FatFace
This is an article from The Guardian Newspaper 12th September 2016 by Tim Lusher as well as including a preview of the first 9 chapters.
Beech trees are bullies and willows are loners, says forester Peter Wohlleben, author of a new book claiming that trees have personalities and communicate via a below-ground ‘woodwide web’.
Trees have friends, feel loneliness, scream with pain and communicate underground via the “woodwide web”. Some act as parents and good neighbours. Others do more than just throw shade – they’re brutal bullies to rival species. The young ones take risks with their drinking and leaf-dropping then remember the hard lessons from their mistakes. It’s a hard-knock life.
A book called The Hidden Life of Trees is not an obvious bestseller but it’s easy to see the popular appeal of German forester Peter Wohlleben’s claims – they are so anthropomorphic. Certainly, a walk in the park feels different when you imagine the network of roots crackling with sappy chat beneath your feet. We don’t know the half of what’s going on underground and beneath the bark, he says: “We have been looking at nature for the last 100 years like [it is] a machine.”
There’s a touchy-feely warmth to the book – an “ouch!” when he describes trees having branches hacked, roots cut or being gnawed by insects – and he talks about “brainlike things” going on in trees that enable them to learn over their long lifetimes. He points to scientific research – by Aachen University, the University of British Columbia and the Max Planck Society – that he claims underpins all his vivid descriptions, but he writes as a conservationist and admits that much is still unknown. “It’s very hard to find out what trees are communicating when they feel well,” he says.
Wohlleben – it translates as “Livewell” – has developed his thinking over the past decade while watching the powerful but self-interested survival system of the ancient beech forest he manages in the Eifel mountains of western Germany. “The thing that surprised me most is how social trees are. I stumbled over an old stump one day and saw that it was still living although it was 400 or 500 years old, without any green leaf. Every living being needs nutrition. The only explanation was that it was supported by the neighbour trees via the roots with a sugar solution. As a forester, I learned that trees are competitors that struggle against each other, for light, for space, and there I saw that it’s just vice versa. Trees are very interested in keeping every member of this community alive.”
The key to it, he says, is the so-called woodwide web – trees message their distress in electrical signals via their roots and across fungi networks (“like our nerve system”) to others nearby when they are under attack. By the same means, they feed stricken trees, nurture some saplings (their “most beloved child”) and restrict others to keep the community strong.
“Trees may recognise with their roots who are their friends, who are their families, where their kids are. Then they may also recognise trees that are not so welcome. There are some stumps in these old beech reservations that are alive, and there are some that are rotten, which obviously have had no contact with the roots of supporting neighbours. So perhaps they are like hermits.” It sounds like living in a small village – as he does, in Hümmel, near the Belgian border.
He writes about the unforgiving woodland etiquette – no one likes a showoff who crowds everyone out and hogs the resources. When trees break the rules, you end up with a “drunken forest”. He describes “upright members of ancient forests … This is what a mature, well-behaved deciduous tree looks like. It has a ramrod-straight trunk with a regular, orderly arrangement of wood fibres.”
In Wohlleben’s analysis, it’s almost as if trees have feelings and character. “We think about plants being robotic, following a genetic code. Plants and trees always have a choice about what to do. Trees are able to decide, have memories and even different characters. There are perhaps nicer guys and bad guys.”
So which are good, bad and sad? Beeches and oaks form forests that last for thousands of years because they act like families, he says. Trees are tribal (“They are genetically as far away from each other as you and a goldfish”) and ruthlessly protect their own kind: “Beeches harass new species such as oak to such an extent that they weaken.” Douglas fir and spruce also bond within their species.
Willows are loners. “The seeds fly far away from other trees, many kilometres. The trees grow fast and don’t live very long. They are like Usain Bolt – always the first, then they can’t breathe any more after 100 years and then they are gone.” Poplars aren’t social either and “a birch will wipe other trees away so it has more space for its crown. That doesn’t sound very nice but I think birch has no other choice because that’s what it’s grown like because of its genes.” City trees are like street kids – isolated and struggling against the odds without strong roots.
Wohlleben, 52, used to work as a state forester, viewing trees as lumber, then began running survival training courses and log-cabin tours. Since 2006, he has managed the forest on behalf of the community, banning machinery and selling burial plots with trees as living gravestones. His book became a bestseller in Germany last year, charting higher than memoirs by the pope and former chancellor Helmut Schmidt. His accessible, chatty style made him a hit on TV chatshows but he doesn’t want to be seen as a tree whisperer, telling the Frankfurter Allgemeine: “I don’t hug trees and I don’t talk to them.”
He talks about wood as “tree bones” and burns it for fuel at the forest home he shares with his wife, Miriam, where they grow their own vegetables and corn, and keep horses and goats. Every 15 minutes as we talk over Skype, we break off as an old German oak clock chimes loudly. (“I bought it on eBay. It had been in an English country house for over 100 years.”)
He talks about the natural world admiringly, wondrously even, but unsentimentally. “The question for me is not should we use any living being but just how to deal with them.” He wants us to cut down our wood consumption and enjoy trees more – he describes them as “plant elephants”. Have we lost our connection with the natural world? “No, I don’t think so. Perhaps we have a little distance because scientists over the last 200 years have taught us that nature works without soul.”
Stunning view from the forest around the lake “Eibsee”, Grainau/Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria, Germany. The forest and the lake are located at the base of Germany’s highest mountain “Zugspitze” (2962 m above sea level).
The lake is owned by the same family that own the Eibsee Hotel at the water’s edge, and they do a very good job of looking after it, providing a few rest stops for those that undertake the 7.5 kilometre loop around the water’s edge. If you visit during one of the glorious autumn days that Mother Nature is currently treating us to, then don’t be put off by the crowds doing the usual trek. It’s not hard to find your own path devoid of everything but trees, wildlife, the most spectacular views from the lake above.
German Forester Peter Wohlleben in his book The Hidden Life of Trees believes that trees communicate through the vast network of roots underground, and through sap and funghi. Another blog post to write about.
EIBSEE TIPS:
Eibsee is around 100km south west of Munich, 10km or so from Garmisch (which is also really worth a visit!) You can catch a train from Munich, or drive – Parking is quite easy.
Follow the signs to the lake, then go against the crowds doing the usual 7.5km loop for the most peaceful walk. Don’t be afraid to follow the quieter paths up through the forest, just be aware of the tick risk, and obviously stick to the paths where there’s a drop to one side;
Walking shoes are obviously the best idea for a proper hike, although you would get away with trainers if you are just sticking to the loop. Don’t forget to bring a small towel for the absolutely mandatory paddle in the gorgeous clear waters at the end of your walk (there are plenty of little beaches in the shallows). The water is typically around 12 metres deep and at the lake is 36 metres at its deepest, and perfectly clean enough to swim in!
If walking/hiking/swimming really isn’t your thing, hire a boat or a canoe (or bring a paddle board!) and enjoy the breaktaking views of the Zugspitze from the middle of the lake (in the summer month’s there’s a small ferry for a round trip!);
Take it all in and appreciate exactly how clever Mother Nature is (and don’t forget to let me know if you hear any trees talking!)…
Tree Weaver 