Scientific Support for Ancient Trees
The old wisdom captured in ancient trees shows us a way to the future.
The importance of our mission to humanity was correctly stated by one of our Science Advisors, Diana Beresford-Kroeger, botanist, medical and agricultural researcher, lecturer, and scientist in the fields of classical botany, medical biochemistry, organic chemistry, and nuclear chemistry, as well as the author of several books including The Global Forest and Arboretum America: A Philosophy of the Forest.
“Old wisdom is captured in ancient trees. These survivors tell us about the past. They indicate a way for the future.
“All memory is trapped in DNA, the older the better. It is spelled out in the molecular machinery of a tree and that tree’s relationship to a forest and the forest’s relationship to all life around it. Each event of the past finds its molecular home in the strands of DNA to be represented there, possibly forever. This is called epigenetics. This is the march of life from birth to death of any species, animal or plant.
“Long ago, the master plan of DNA was tied into a carbon currency. Carbon became the living key for planetary trading. Out of a toxic atmosphere of carbon dioxide, carbon was sequestered into life forms and oxygen spilled into the atmosphere. As the carbon dioxide decreased and oxygen increased, the DNA became more sophisticated and so did life itself.
“Today carbon is still the currency. It is to be found in plants and in animals as the true skeletal framework of all life forms. The carbon has been banked over time into massive reserves by the planet. These reserves are to be found as fossils buried in the vaults of nature and the trees of the global forests did the banking.
“Today we have spent our reserves of fossil fuel. We have cut down the forest. Global reforestation will reverse this process. One hundred trees have been selected. These have unaltered native, wild DNA. And the atmosphere is becoming more toxic to us at a rate of 2ppm of carbon dioxide per year.
“They bank the most carbon, they store the greatest carbon in reserve. They withstand an increase of solar exposure, heat and ultraviolet light.
“They are drought-resistant and maintain fresh water aquifers. Many reflect infrared light back into space, curbing an increase of atmospheric temperature. Others show a strong spring respiratory curve of global oxygenation. Most scrub the atmosphere clean of deadly 2.5 micron particulate contamination. A great number add natural medicines in the form of aerosols into the atmosphere as antibiotic, antiviral and fungicidal chemical warriors. Many more regulate the nutrient levels of the oceans and aid the oxygenation of salt water seas for marine life. More release specific water-hungry chemicals that initiate rainfall and regulate weather. Finally, they all, to a tree, pump oxygen into the atmosphere to maintain all life on this planet.”
