Friday 21 March was the United Nations International Day of Forests. The day acts both as an opportunity to promote the importance of forests worldwide. Aside from playing a pivotal role in the earth’s biosphere, forests provide a vital source of abundance for indigenous communities in South America, Africa and Asia, as well as an effective natural flood defence. But the world’s forests are in deep trouble.
The climate crisis and forests
The most recent report from the United Nations on forests, The State of the World’s Forests 2024, makes for grim reading. Against all odds, deforestation has declined in recent years, but world’s forests are still in great danger.
The parlous state of the natural world does not stop there. The reduction in deforestation around the world is, of course, welcome. However, such progress takes place against a backdrop of rapidly accelerating climate change.
In Losing Earth, journalist Nathanial Rich details the decades long battle the fossil fuel industry has waged fighting the growing body of scientific evidence that burning fossil fuels results in increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere. Only belatedly moving towards acceptance in recent decades, it has struck many climatologists as too little too late.
There is a growing view that a rise of three degrees in the earth’s temperature is the best for which we can realistically hope. That would still mean the decimation of the Great Barrier Reef, a permanent drought in Europe and the complete abandonment of the Gulf states. In other words, massive disruption on a global scale.
The forests around us
On the International Day of Forests, I was strolling as I do every day in the wooded areas around Shipley and Bingley. I begin my walk near my home in Bingley. In the company of an energetic cocker spaniel, I walk up the hill separating Bingley from Eldwick. On a bright day, it is possible to glimpse the nearby communities of Saltaire, Wilsden and even Keighley. We briefly take in the well-manicured pleasures of Prince of Wales Park before heading further uphill to the village of Gilstead, and towards Shipley Glen.
The unmistakable presence in a forest is, of course, trees. The trees of Shipley Glen provide a genuinely interesting, invigorating tapestry for a walk on a spring day. Being in a forest is an assault on the senses that one does not get from, say, the coast or at a push, the desert. I am not an expert of deserts, but I’ve been to one or two, and they are not quite as stimulating for the senses as a good forest. A desert is quiet; at the coast, the smell of sea-salt and the roar of the wind are overpowering. Trees, however, are a delight for the senses.
Experiencing the forest
Forests capture the rain, so when walking in a forest, the country-bred can often smell the rain lingering on the leaves and the bark. The colour and the shade of each tree is a delight for the eyes. One feels the pressed and matted leaves underfoot, providing a satisfying crunch through stout boots. One smells the rain, glimpses the colour, hears the movement and rustle. I do not think there are many environments on earth that can provide as much mental and emotional stimulation as a forest.
Little wonder that the Japanese have a word for the healing properties of forests. Shinrin-yoko is the Japanese practice of spending time around trees in which a sensory absorption of a forest is used to restore mental and physical health. It has been found that regular exposure to trees can lower blood pressure, reduce stress, and boost the immune system. The cycle of a forest mirrors the cycle of our planet from summer to winter and back to summer.
Recalling the scene from Hitchcock’s Vertgio where James Stewart and Kim Novak gaze upon a fallen giant redwood, my mind skips to Philip Larkin’s poem The Trees: “their yearly trick of looking new/is written down in rings of grain”. For one or two brief moments, I even forget our heating planet, and I escape from climate despair.
Reflecting on a need for change
In Shipley Grain, there are clues to the area’s industrial past; an abandoned mill now just a ruin; depressions in the earth where wells or tracks used to be. Carrying on downhill towards Robert’s Park, I need a drink and decamp to a local café for a cup of tea. I am now out of the forest, and my brief episode of Shinrin-yoko is over. It is a good moment to ponder the other trees in the world.
The forests of the world that support fragile communities in many of the poorest nations on earth are at risk of being despoiled by climate change or overconsumption. The trees being cut down in South America, Asia and Africa. A day without trees would, for me, be a disappointing day. But to have your home destroyed, as many indigenous Amazon tribes, must be unimaginably painful. It’s a good moment to reflect on our common treasury that are forests wherever they are, from the arctic circle to South Africa, from California to Vladivostok. What fools we are for destroying the world’s forests.
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