Note 1: If Forests Talk?

I sit here in front of my laptop with the temptation to begin this text with an assortment of platitudes; about the wondrous nature of forests, what they are, what they mean and what they represent. Platitudes that are like dewdrops condensed from the sheer complexities that forests constitute through their roles in the story that we call deep time.

 

PBS Eons have taught me that if we were to trace the sylvan origins of our species, we’d find forests forming the settings of the early defining moments in our evolution.

The forest canopies that our early ancestors dwelled upon. The forest grounds that our distant relatives stood upon when they eventually descended from the trees. Even their absence as forests gave way to grassland is believed to have spurred us to loss our fur coverings as we evolved to run more efficiently as hunters.

All this is to say that even at such short evolutionary timelines (roughly five million years) and narrow species-specific perspectives (humanity), forests have so much to tell us about ourselves, but much more everything else.

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Curator's Notes

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Curator's Notes

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Curator's Notes