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Episode 363

Suzanne Simard is a world-renowned forest ecologist who shot to stardom with her first book Finding the Mother Tree. It tells the story of her life’s work, showing trees and plants are connected through fungal networks, demonstrating a kind of wisdom and intelligence.

Now, with the release of her latest book When the Forest Breathes, she’s keen to highlight the destructive and extractive forestry practices of the modern age - and why Western science needs an update. 

Rowan Hooper sits down with Simard under the famous Lucombe Oak in London’s Kew Gardens.

Together they explore the concept of the ‘wood wide web’, the name given to her breakthrough work showing communication between forest trees via an underground fungal network. They discuss the scientific backlash that came when she popularised this work and how it all came at a particularly difficult time in her life. And they explore her time spent with indigenous peoples in the Amazon rainforest.

As Simard aims to make us view forest ecosystems in a more holistic and regenerative way - what will it take to truly change the industry?
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