Pioneering Scientist Suzanne Simard

Suzanne Simard discovered that every tree in a forest is linked by underground fungi, allowing them to communicate and build communities around powerful, nurturing Mother Trees. The Canadian trailblazing scientist returns with another vital book, which centres nature's cycles of renewal in the future vision of our forests.

When the forest breathes out, we breathe in. When the forest thrives, we thrive.

The world-renowned forest ecologist has transformed our understanding of the profound intelligence and interconnectedness of trees. In When the Forest Breathes, she uncovers how the deep-rooted cycles of renewal that sustain the forest can also help us to protect our entire global ecosystem.

Raised in a family of loggers committed to sustainable stewardship of the land, Simard has watched as timber companies leave the forests of her native British Columbia vulnerable to wildfires and drought, threatening the crucial biodiversity that they support. But her groundbreaking research for the Mother Tree Project – one of the most ambitious forest ecology experiments of its kind – has the potential to chart a new course.

The forest is a living symphony of finely honed cycles of birth, growth, death and rebirth that hold the key to protecting the natural world. Working closely with local Indigenous communities, whose sustainable practices have been largely ignored, Simard examines how holistic, regenerative forestry that preserves the cycles of the forest can help solve the global climate crisis.

Weaving together scientific discoveries and luminous storytelling, Simard's book is a call to rediscover our kinship with the natural world, and listen to the lessons of the forest.

Dr Suzanne Simard is the bestselling author of Finding the Mother Tree. She is a Professor of Forest Ecology at the University of British Columbia, where she leads The Mother Tree Project. She has earned a global reputation for pioneering research on tree connectivity and communication and its impact on the health and diversity of forests. She lives with her family in the British Columbia mountains.