FROM AUGUSTE PLINY IN THE AMAZON BASIN

A WORLD-WIDE study of trees has discovered that while humans do influence growth, principally by clearance and to a lesser extent by planting, trees themselves appear to shape human settlement for their own benefit where they can.

“Trees and other flora seem to have some conscious connection to each other, through their roots, and using fungi and such-like,” says Dr Michael Copse of the Branch Institute, which studies what he describes as “the minds of forests.

“They organize, almost like an army. They spot openings in human settlement and move in. They sacrifice specific trees to human deforestation where it’s impossible to resist, and then send their energy stores to other areas where growth happens at a faster pace. If you watch from space, as we do, you see forests conducting flanking movements around humans, and indeed sucking humans into areas where agriculture is precarious. When the humans fail in these areas, the trees simply move back in. They have been doing this with other creatures for millions of years. Those who thought the trees were just dumb victims of human advance, they are so wrong. Trees, and indeed the plants around them, they actively struggle with the creatures they share this planet with, including us; and appear to consciously manage us to their own ends. Next thing we need to do is really try and understand how they communicate, what their language is. To speak it even. Remember, when you hug a tree, it’s actually analyzing you, did you know that?”