- [host Joe Hanson] It looks like the latest forest relaxation fad.
But this is no vacation.
It's actually the front lines of a battle.
These guardians have spent the past year in this forest
fighting to protect a rare habitat
from imminent destruction.
And the fate of an ancient community, whose importance
we're just beginning to appreciate hangs in the balance.
[energetic music]
In the old growth rain forests
of the Pacific Northwest, giants dwell.
These ancients are among the tallest trees in the world
and can live over a thousand years.
Forests like this are home to a rich diversity of species,
many of which are found nowhere else in the world.
And they store about twice as much carbon per acre
as the Amazon.
These temperate rainforests once stretched
from Northern California to Southeast Alaska,
but today little remains.
In the province of British Columbia, Canada,
more than 97% of the old growth forests
with tall trees have been lost to logging.
And the losses are similar in the US.
One of the last intact valleys of primeval
temperate rain forest outside of a protected area
is here on Vancouver island.
The Fairy Creek watershed lies
within First Nation territory and is home
to ancient cedar, spruce and hemlock trees.
- It also happens to be important spiritual area,
cleansing places where we find balance
and equilibrium in our lives.
- But big trees like these are also prized
by industry because of the quality of the wood they produce.
Logging a place like Fairy Creek could generate
millions of dollars in revenue for a company.
Because of that, this area has become a target.
Just a few kilometers away from Fairy Creek lies this
solitary 1200-year-old Douglas fir.
It's the second tallest such fir in all of Canada
and once stood in a forest of ancient trees.
It's now a symbol of old growth destruction
and has been given the name Big, Lonely Doug.
And now the same company, which clear-cut this valley,
has been moving ahead with plans to log Fairy Creek.
But protesters from around the world have come
to this forest and they've joined up with some members
of the Pacheedaht First Nation,
within whose territory Fairy Creek lies.
For the past year they've encamped around this valley
and struggled to keep logging at bay.
- It just doesn't make sense why they can't
preserve these huge ginormous trees when it's
the last little bit of them ever in the world.
They've gotten all of the rest of it.
Why can't they just like leave these ones alone.
It's really nuts. We have to do this, like, look at this.
This is crazy.
I'm just like a mom and a surfer and like a regular person.
I'm not some sort of nutty outdoors-y extreme person,
but this is what it takes for a change.
This is what it takes.
- But how does a small band of people
stand up to a massive industry?
To protect these trees, you have to occupy them.
They build elaborate structures high up in the canopy.
Tree-sitters might spend a week or more up here
before they're forcibly removed.
- I'm a bit emotional.
It's been like a couple super hard days.
Sometimes I feel like how come everybody isn't here,
but I understand that's the way this system
is set up for us.
You know, we have to work so hard
and keep our heads down and just keep going.
'Cause if we drop the ball, we'll lose it all.
There's people who have jobs that they really can't leave,
but they know they just have to be here.
Like, we're just all doing this because we love it.
- Sitting in a tree prevents loggers
from cutting the encircling forest.
They also build elaborate road blockades
that prevent heavy equipment from entering.
As the logging company Teal Jones has pressed
its legal claim to cut these forests,
police have arrested hundreds of protesters.
Some pay significant financial penalties.
They're taking these personal risks to protect the trees,
but by doing so, they're also protecting
a vast hidden network.
These trees share nutrients and water with each other
by means of a sprawling labyrinth of underground fungi.
These Mycorrhizal fungi connect to the roots of trees
and allow them to communicate with their neighbors
about environmental changes and dangers like hungry insects.
It's been dubbed the wood wide web because of
its striking resemblance to our human network.
And it means these trees are social beings.
Over 90% of the world's plant species
form relationships with beneficial fungi.
But when forests are clear cut,
these symbiotic relationships die with them.
Until recently these complex networks in the soils
were unknown and the forest floor may not be
the only place these surprising connections occur.
These tree tops play host to a vibrant
but little-seen world.
They are biodiversity hotspots and havens for plants,
invertebrates and endangered species
like the marbled murrelet.
- When I first got the opportunity to climb up
into a big-leaf maple, I saw that there were
so many plant species and just a habitat for other organisms
to thrive high above the forest floor.
I was just in awe.
- Korena Mafune studies canopy soil,
the thick brown mats of organic matter that collect
in the canopies of old growth trees and which resemble
soils found on the forest floor.
These soils are created by microbes and insects
breaking down the leaves and other organic matter
that collect on limbs.
It can take decades or perhaps even a century or more
for these soils to accumulate and form.
Little is known about them
or what function they play in the forest.
When Mafune started investigating them,
she found something puzzling.
- Here I am up in a tree with these beautiful organic mats
of canopy soil, and there's roots in this canopy soil.
It was astonishing.
- Why would a tree spend precious energy growing roots
out of its limbs high above the forest floor?
- I was like, if there's roots up there,
they have to be doing something for these host trees.
One of the things I started noticing is that there
was mushrooms growing up in this canopy soil environment.
- Not only were fungi connecting with the trees root systems
in the canopy and exchanging resources, the soils themselves
were rich with essential nutrients.
In fact, there's vastly more nutrients per kilogram
of canopy soil than per kilogram of forest floor soil.
- I think that during certain times of the year,
these host trees may actually be depending on the resources
and the plant/fungal partnerships in their canopy soil
environment, to help them survive.
- These canopy soils are found in old growth forests
around the globe.
And if Mafune is right, these soils
and their fungal partnerships could be a key
to the resilience of old growth forests,
allowing trees to survive for hundreds of years
through droughts and other stressors.
Even when we replant the forests we cut,
it takes decades to centuries for these complex ecosystems
we see in old growth to reestablish themselves,
thus making the trees less resilient at the very time
they need it the most.
Scientists like Mafune are only just beginning to unlock
the mysteries of these ancient forests.
And as more of them disappear, what secrets are we losing?
- We don't only lose those trees.
We lose an ecosystem that provides habitat
to endangered species, to species
that have never even been discovered.
These forests, they just hold
such a special place in my heart.
They are way more than a research project.
- Listen to your heart because it will tell you
what the right thing to do is.
[melancholy music]
♪