It is impossible to understand these subjects...

[Michael Grove]

 ... [IN] ISOLATION because they are INTERCONNECTED.

For Lovelock, separating the climate and forest biodiversity crises...

“Is as much of a mistake as the error made by universities when they teach chemistry in a different class from biology and physics. [IT] IS impossible to understand these subjects in isolation because they are interconnected.”

[IT]’s why both Indigenous knowledge and Western science are needed to understand how to live better on this small, wonderful planet. While taking things apart and examining how the pieces work is useful and important, we have to look at how those parts interconnect with everything else, to see the whole — as Indigenous Peoples who have lived in place for millennia have done.

Our understanding of the climate crisis and its causes — and solutions — is growing by leaps and bounds, although basic knowledge about greenhouse gases is at least 200 years old.  



But mainstream forest ecology has only recently started seeing the forest and the trees. Reductionist, capitalist thinking made many see forests as little more than stands of valuable timber — with a few “weed” species in the way — each individual tree worth more cut into boards or pulped into chips than an interdependent life form playing its role in a forest ecosystem.