The Power of Trees

Peter Wohlleben is one of my favourite authors, and on good grounds. This time, the author explores our forests and trees on the back of a documentary he made. Throughout the book he references how tree planting schemes aren't always as good as they seem, how trees rely on their parent trees and what happens if they do not have one. I enjoyed listening to Peter document his fascination with trees and the variety of topics explored and felt it was well-balanced, making it not a dull read about all of our failings. Yes, it highlights many, but also explores what we should do, in some cases, are doing.

Peter Wohlleben is an ex-forester who writes beautifully about trees. His first book, 'The Hidden Life of Trees', was a magnificent exploration of what it meant to give up his social biases formed in his years of forestry. This book feels like the same story, but told with a less deft hand. It explores tree reactivity and social resilience to disease, and gives some interesting examples of how trees learn together to withstand sudden climactic shifts, for example by conserving water or food, but ultimately it feels like the same book again, with a little less impact.