Canadian Scientist Teams with Indigenous Nations on Forests

After decades studying how trees share resources underground, forest scientist Suzanne Simard realized she'd been asking the wrong questions. The real secret to saving forests wasn't just in the soil. It was in listening to Indigenous communities who'd been managing these lands sustainably for thousands of years.

Simard made headlines in 1997 when her research proved that different tree species actually help each other survive, sharing nutrients through underground networks. This flipped traditional forestry thinking upside down, challenging the idea that trees only compete with each other.

But her latest work goes even further. The Mother Tree Project spans nine sites across British Columbia, designed to run for at least 100 years (ideally 500, matching the lifespan of the region's oldest trees). She's working directly with Indigenous nations to test which logging methods actually sustain both forests and communities.

The shift happened when Simard read work by fisheries ecologist Teresa Sm'hayetsk Ryan, who now collaborates on the project. Ryan's research showed that Indigenous forestry follows rules of reciprocity: if you take from the forest, you must give back. This creates a responsibility to care for the whole system, because overexploiting it means communities would struggle to survive.

That thinking stands in stark contrast to industrial logging, which aims to maximize profit as quickly as possible. Simard recognized her own past approach had been too narrow, focused on trees as resources rather than as partners in a living system.

Why This Inspires

The early findings offer real hope for forests worldwide. Keeping 60% of forest cover intact maintains the complex relationships between trees, supports healthy water systems, and prevents land from drying out. In some ecosystems, 30% coverage might work, but clear-cutting consistently fails to sustain forests long term.

Indigenous communities have been managing forests this way for millennia, maintaining abundance through careful stewardship rather than extraction. Now Western science is finally catching up, proving what these nations have always known: you can't separate human wellbeing from the health of the land.

This project shows what becomes possible when scientists humble themselves to learn from Indigenous knowledge. The forests benefit, the communities thrive, and future generations inherit living ecosystems instead of logged-out wastelands.

By designing a study to last centuries, Simard and her Indigenous partners are thinking in tree time, planning for grandchildren who haven't been born yet.