Scientist, poet, generous teacher, story-teller and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger is a national treasure and we should be celebrating her as such.

Her newly published book Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests is a summation of her life work. I have learned to speak the chemical and spiritual languages of nature. I am still learning, she says.

And indeed, there is much for all of us to learn from this important book. Years ago, I read an essay on how climate change is affecting our forests, but never until now have I found technical information to verify and explain this in a layperson’s terms, but also from a biochemical basis.

Truthfully, this is the news nobody wants to hear. When speaking to naturalist groups or friends, I soon discovered that people shut their ears to the very mention of our climate crisis. I’ll confess that the culmination of the havoc which society is wreaking is dire. And a few passages of this honest, science-based account of our future if global warming remains largely unchecked are almost unbearable to consider.

BUT, I have to tell you that in spite of Beresford-Kroeger’s unblinking account of how and why our very earth, our true home, is changing and will change more, she writes hopefully, passionately, and persuasively. In fact, I think you will read her presentation with mounting excitement as I have.

The book is composed of short chapters, covering everything from the importance of forest schools, to her exceptional Irish experience, to the essence of trees and what they do for us, to her research in her own arboretum. An account of infrared communication particularly captured my imagination.

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First, she goes on to stress what we stand to lose without action:

It is understandable that the challenge of halting and reversing the climate crisis can seem overwhelming. But we made this problem. While that recognition should bring humanity shame, it should also inspire hope: we can undo what we’ve done. First and foremost, we must protect what is left of the ancient virgin forest, the remaining trees that grace this planet. The trees of these forests are libraries of knowledge. Some of these super-species are thousands of years old. The rings tracking their growth over so many springs and summers are a record of the challenges of the trees’ past. Each genome of every ancient tree is unique and carries a chemistry and biochemistry of survival. This translates into a greater ability to withstand the ecological impacts of climate change, and it also gifts us with a pharmacopoeia of medicines for both the trees’ survival and our own—neuro-medicines, cardiotonics, anti-cancer compounds and synergists so sleek in their action they are the new wonder drugs of modern medicine.

HOWEVER, she follows this with “a concrete plan to end the climate crisis”. This is her BIOPLAN, her solution to climate change, which is based on the idea that every one of us on this Earth can [and must] do at least a little in the face of the coming global catastrophe.

As she writes convincingly:

Forests were the answer to …  the existential threat we all faced. They were the means through which we could entice the carbon out of the atmosphere and back down into the land. I had to learn more and more—everything science could teach me about the trees; everything the trees could teach me about themselves. Forests hold a form of divinity. [We know that instinctively, don’t we] They are the Holy Orders of our solar system. All trees capture carbon and release oxygen. They conserve and power the blueprint of life. The cathedral of the forest connects to human consciousness with a healing wand. The language of a tree speaks to the primitive in humans to form a molecular marriage of identity. This union of people and trees is ancient; we are woven together in an invisible living tapestry. This is the basic connecting element of life, all life, on this foundling planet, our home.

With elegant simplicity and a lilting style, she makes her case. Speaking from a long life as a scientific researcher, and also as a woman grounded in her powerful Celtic origins, she brings together all the reasons why we must care and what we must do:

Articulating the fullness of this relationship, the many ways our souls, spirits and lives depend on trees, is no mean feat. It requires scientific and spiritual knowledge, study and lived experience, and a willingness to listen—particularly to the trees. It is a life’s work. It has been mine.