“Over the past 30 years, the world’s forest area has shrunk by more than 420 million hectares, at a rate of about 4.7 million hectares per year since 2010”, reports the WWF.
This data makes us understand the urgency to act now for forestation. Indeed, forests mean trees and fruits biodiversity, wood, especially for extremely poor people, home for animals such as birds and squirrels. They also offer us shadow during the sunny days and a shelter in the rainy days, beautiful landscapes and, last but not least, oxygen to everyone.
All of this is provided by intelligent green beings: plants, in the absence of a nervous system, have developed mechanisms to perceive, remember and communicate. One of these uses fungi in symbiosis with tree roots, which create a dense network for the transport of important information and nutrients.
Trees are so smart that a new science was born: “plant neurobiology”. This one is based on a fundamental observation: plants have perception capacities, in many cases superior to those of animals. Indeed, they are able to intercept the light and shadow cast by other plants, as well as they perceive gravity and moisture. They can also feel subtle differences in nutrients and molecules in the soil, as well as gases from bacteria in the soil.
Moreover, lots of trees have a sort of heartbeat: they go through periodic changes in shape and position of their foliage that appear to be synchronised for all parts of the plant. This does not depend on the alternation of day and night, but is linked to a slow but constant active pumping of sap. Trees, indeed, suck up periodically water through the roots and stem, producing these imperceptible movements.
This is why it has been an honour for me to plant trees during my birthday. This is the best gift I could imagine: to learn a new skill in a cohesive group of volunteers to help Mother Earth in a snow day. A group of interconnected human beings gathered to give life to a group of intertwined trees.
