by John Perlin

As members of the global 1t.org community, we are not strangers to the concept that trees are valuable to our environment. They are a crucial nature-based solution to climate change, and we’re on a mission to scale conservation and restoration globally, unlocking private-public sector partnerships, and spotlighting innovations that are ready to scale. Trees cool our cities, provide habitat encouraging biodiversity, store carbon and more.

Thinking even more broadly, trees aren’t just part of our environment—they play a key role in humanity—our civilization, cultures and people. John Perlin, author of “A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilizations,” effectively demonstrates the profound impact trees have had in our world. First published in 1986, Patagonia recently reissued the book, with updated insights from Perlin that demonstrate now more than ever that forests are central to human survival and are crucial to our future. As our understanding of forests evolves, so too does our responsibility to protect and restore them.

The 1t.org US Chapter recently had the opportunity to discuss “A Forest Journey” with Perlin. Read on for more insights on forests as the fundamental piece of nature that ties us all together.

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“A Forest Journey” demonstrates through extensive research that civilizations rose and fell based on their access to forests. This iron rule existed because wood served as the principal fuel and building material for humanity from the Stone Age through the nineteenth century. Without vast supplies of wood felled from forests, humanity would never have been able to leave Africa and settle throughout the world nor would the great civilizations of Sumer, Assyria, Egypt, China, Crete, ancient Greece and Rome, Western Europe, and North America have ever emerged.
Conversely, when a society extinguished its local wood supply it either reached out through trade or conquest for access to a new swathe of forests or gave way to others richer in their trees.

It may seem bold to assert wood’s crucial place in the evolution of civilization. But consider: throughout time trees have provided the material to make fire, the heat of which made colder climates habitable, facilitating human settlement throughout the world; cooking made grains edible, turning them into a major source of food, making possible the agricultural revolution that led to large urban centers and great civilizations; earth, thanks to fire, could be converted into ceramics, which served as containers to store goods and allow for their transport; the metal ages would never have emerged without charcoal-fed flames reaching sufficient temperatures to extract metal from ore and then shaping the metal to revolutionize implements necessary for agriculture, carpentry and warfare; Fire made construction material durable, producing brick, cement, lime and plaster necessary for creating urban architecture such as the grandeur that once was Rome.

Transportation necessary for trade, travel and discovery would have been unthinkable without wood. Until the latter part of the nineteenth century most every boat and ship, from Stone Age canoe to giant sailing vessels were built from timber. Every cart, chariot and wagon were made primarily from wood. The Native Americans called the Conestoga, “wood on wheels.” Steamboats and railroad locomotives in the United States burned wood as their fuel even after the Civil War. Railroad ties, of course, were made of wood, too.

Before the mechanization of agriculture, farmers relied on tools with wooden handles and wood ploughs; the soldiers could not throw his spear or shoot his arrows without their wooden shafts, or hold his gun without its wooden stock. What would the archer have done lacking wood for his bow; the brewer and vintner without wood for their barrels and casks; or the woolen industry, without wood for its looms?

Wood was the foundation upon which humanity developed.

1t.org US: How has the conversation around forests, climate, and sustainability evolved since the A Forest Journey was first published?

Perlin: Here are examples of new material discussed in the enlarged and updated edition:
• The recent discovery of the first true tree – Archaeopteris – that covered Earth 385 million years ago, began the great atmospheric carbon dioxide take down that has made the land livable for large animals, including us.
• During the 1990s scientists discovered that “Old Growth” take in and store more carbon dioxide than do faster growing intensely managed forests.
• Over the last 30 years science has come to the conclusion that much of the carbon takedown by trees occurs deep underground in the tees’ roots.
• Forests help moderate the air temperature by their leaves emitting large amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere as does the release of aerosols and the creation of wind currents above the canopy in temperate and boreal forests.
• For the longest time almost everyone agreed that the evaporation of the oceans was the singular cause of terrestrial precipitation. In the last decade scientists found that forests supply rain to areas distant from their locations.
• Intact, healthy forests foster biodiversity which shield humanity from multiple deadly diseases. Their removal has brought about outbreaks of Lyme disease, malaria, Ebola and Coronaviruses, devastating human populations.

1t.org US: Our community members are passionate about tree restoration. What actions would you recommend individuals, businesses, and governments take to make the biggest impact? 

Perlin: The answer lies to which century and climate do we wish to restore to? A good example to this quandary is the chaparral of southern California most consider as the original landscape. But it turns out that the region’s chaparral only came to dominate 11,000 years ago in the wake of the first settlers burning down the native oak and juniper forest. As A Forest Journey richly shows, lands considered treeless throughout the world once hosted lush forests. But can these be restored to their original conditions after so much damage has occurred over time to these deforested landscapes exposed for centuries to the erosive ravages of humanity as well as the sun, water and wind? Also, the effects of global warming must be considered. Can trees currently regarded as natives survive an extremely different climate regime? Or will they inevitably collapse? Perhaps species better adapted to an Equatorward future make a far wiser choice.

1t.org US: Where can we find “A Forest Journey?”

A Forest Journey can be purchased from Patagonia here, from Amazon or your local book store. Learn more about the book here. For signed books, please email John Perlin.