The Strabo Squirrel and the importance of forests

The importance of forests

The importance of forests is undeniable in many ways. There is a powerful genetic memory in human beings that will forever link us to nature in all its glory. Forests are the object of our delight and enjoyment. They are purity and freedom. They are our greatest wealth.

”I went to the woods because I wanted to live life intensely, because I wanted to feel alive, so as not to discover, just before my death, that I had not lived”.

These are the philosopher and poet's most famous verses Henry D. Thoreau, undoubtedly a maxim that invited us to rediscover human essences in the midst of nature, to introspection and inner knowledge, to personal growth, to rediscover the origins and spaces that witnessed the birth of our species. A philosophy that Kleinbaum immortalized forever in his masterpiece, The Dead Poets Club.

Many centuries before Thoreau left everything to go live in a cabin, the Greek geographer Strabo, chronicler of the Roman legions, would tell us that famous anecdote that we have heard so many times:

“Hispania is a jungle where a squirrel could cross its forests from Gibraltar to the Pyrenees without even touching the ground”.

Today, frequent air travel allows many people to contemplate the skin of the Peninsula from the air. The vision is not flattering: huge brown, yellowish and ochraceous spaces predominate over the green spots. The passing of the centuries, the merciless fire, the blade of the axe, the plow fence and the teeth of the cattle have left nothing but the remains of what was a forest and fauna paradise, of that Mediterranean jungle that made Strabo himself fall in love with.

A country of forests

In spite of everything, we are still living in a country of forests. With almost 28 million hectares, Spain is the second country in Europe with the largest forest area only after Sweden. In this sense, given their vital importance, it is necessary to read forests from three interconnected prisms: ecological, economic and cultural.

As for the first, forests represent the highest expression of nature and constitute the most valuable ecosystems on Earth, a beautiful heritage to be preserved due to their high levels of biodiversity, their variety of multiple habitats and landscapes, their generation of fertile soils, the production of O₂ clean, the huge capture of CO₂ which mitigates climate change and its function as inducers of rain, in addition to producing biomass that can be used as a source of renewable energy.

They recreate, in essence, spaces where everything substantial for life merges: light, soil, air and water. Their core element, the tree, is the best administrator that exists over time and space, they flirt with eternity, live slowly and recreate themselves in parsimony and such is their humility, as Buddha said, that they shade even the woodcutter.

Second, and although forests are clearly priceless, they represent a major economic asset. Recent studies (Araújo, 2011) indicate that the environmental values of Spanish forests, translated into money, would amount to the equivalent of 50 billion euros, or 5% of the entire national GDP. But not only today they are important to us. History or anthropology tell us that the forests provided the first peoples with everything they needed to settle and prosper: wood and cork to make their houses, wood for fire, honey, medicinal plants, mushrooms, berries, meat of wild animals to eat, skins for clothing and even bones and tendons for their weapons and arrows.

And finally, its cultural function is undeniable. It's very difficult to find someone who doesn't feel at ease in a forest. There is a powerful genetic memory in human beings that will forever link us to this kingdom of shadows. This is why the forest has so powerfully attracted our spirit and all our forms of culture. There are countless stories, myths and legends, stories, novels, movies, paintings, photographs or musical compositions that have the forest as their protagonist. From Tolkien to Enya, through Andersen, Whitman or George Lucas, all cultural sensibilities have surrendered to these green infinity tapestries. The field itself became a tree in you, brown oak, will remind us forever of Machado's verses.

An old Hindu proverb goes like this:

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

Can you imagine a country without trees? From Environmental Ideas we invite all of you to dedicate a few minutes of our time to planting trees, to contribute, together and together, to conserve that prodigious plant heritage that gives meaning to our lives.