The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth

The world is in the grip of unprecedented change. The planet you think you live on no longer exists. But this is old news.

In reading Ben Rawlence’s The Treeline, one feels the burden of the reality it depicts: nature commodified and a “hyperventilating” planet “knocked out of whack.” Yet the complexity of the urgent and gloomy issues it tackles is constantly softened by the humanity of the stories conveying them. In a public sphere where opinion is king, this is bold narrative journalism at its best, and a reminder that we don’t tell enough stories about the reality of our changing climate, vanishing environments, and what all this will mean for humans everywhere.

Between 2018 and 2020, the author traveled to key locations along the Arctic treeline – the northernmost parts of the boreal forest growing in the Northern Hemisphere – “a transition zone between ecosystems, what scientists call the forest-tundra ecotone, in some cases hundreds of kilometers wide and in others a matter of feet”. Beyond the treeline is the tundra, where trees give way to bushes and large swathes of grass. From Alaska, through Canada and Greenland, across the Atlantic to Wales, Scotland, Norway, and Siberia, this border of trees has been shifting for decades, faster than ever in recent years. And this “bright green halo” is “moving unnaturally fast […] turning the white Arctic green”. In some parts it advances, in others it retreats. Occasionally it remains stationary – though this isn’t necessarily good news. 

The treeline consists of a “tiny handful of tree species”, “an elite club.” The six featured in the book: “three conifers and three broadleaves evolved to survive the cold” and outcompeted other species. Rawlence visits each tree in its native territory, “to see how the different species were faring in response to warming” and what their stories were for humans and other inhabitants of the forest. 

Trees, these magical creations of the biosphere, essential to life on Earth, intertwined with the human story, immeasurably important for the populations which historically depended on them. But, like the weather, these species are acting in surprising ways, with the power – if left to their own devices – to adapt to whatever the climate has in store (such as the Ary Mas forest in Siberia, and its “clever” larch with adaptive DNA).

The migration of the treeline north is no longer a matter of centimeters per century; instead it is hundreds of metres every year. The trees are on the move. They shouldn’t be. And this sinister fact has enormous consequences for all life on earth.

But the book is so much more than “an attempt to catch a glimpse of nature’s algorithms at work”. Rawlence was intrigued. And how could he not be, when this shifting treeline could be the answer to so many questions about the trajectory of our world? It’s also the curiosity and the surprise of the neophyte that makes the case for mitigation and adaptation so compelling. 

From locals and Indigenous populations to despairing scientists doing lab or field work, businessmen ready to adapt and profit, and even climate crisis deniers, Rawlence met them all and listened to their stories and solutions, their hopes and fears, and the local histories where a lot of truth resides. He shares rewilding projects but also unusual approaches to solving the crisis – like trying to save the forest… by cutting down trees – and populations dealing with too many trees, like those living in a now-overgrown tundra.

There’s no simple solution to the effects of the climate crisis, and no straightforward conclusion, but Rawlence makes the case for the importance of exploring the natural world we humans smugly think that we command. Answers can be found by reconnecting to the natural world from a position of equal footing, respect, and understanding; and in listening and giving a platform to Indigenous populations and researchers who dedicate their waking hours to this exploration.

Both author and reader finish this journey with a deeper understanding of trees, the complex broader context they are a part of, and the humans deeply connected to their very existence. Rawlence was not a specialist when he started researching this book, but he had become one by the end of it – as all good journalists should. What he discovered were not only compelling stories but literally life-changing ones. Indeed, this book has changed its author’s life not only in theory, through increased environmental awareness seeping into daily life, but in practice too, when he co-founded Black Mountain College in Wales, an institute dedicated to preparing people for the changes to come.  

There is much to fear in what we know and much to hope for in what we do not.

The Treeline is thrilling, educational, and highly informative. It connects many dots and nudges us into further exploration. But, most of all, it nudges us into action. And some actions are easier than you might think, like the transformative experience of spending a few hours with a tree; the author himself recalls in detail a day spent in the presence of a solitary pine tree in a churchyard. 

“The forest is a sea of possibility, an infinite experiment into co-evolution”, “a constantly evolving mosaic of species”, and the many (still) possible futures of life on Earth are inextricably connected to the life of trees. As trees and humans “enjoy the same climate niche”, maybe “thinking like a forest” should be thoroughly explored. So the revolution can indeed begin with just “a walk in the woods.”

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Featured photo by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash