Trees have memories. They have wisdom. They cooperate in communities of immense complexity, communicating underground through a huge web of fungi, at the centre of which lie the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful entities that nurture their kin and sustain the forest.

That may sound initially like New Age mumbo-jumbo. But these are the core findings of a scientific revolution that has been taking place in our understanding of trees.

No one has done more in this field than the world-renowned scientist Suzanne Simard. In May 2021 she came to Intelligence Squared to share the secrets of a lifetime spent uncovering startling truths about trees. As she explains in her new book, Finding the Mother Tree, Simard did not set out to be a scientist. She was working in the forest service in British Columbia when she first made her discoveries. Though her ground-breaking findings were initially dismissed and even ridiculed, they are now firmly supported by the data. As her remarkable journey shows us, science is not a realm apart from ordinary life, but deeply connected with our humanity.

Now Simard’s story is going to be made into a film by Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal, with Adams playing Simard.

Simard reveals how the complex cycle of forest life – on which we rely for our existence – offers profound lessons about resilience and kinship, and must be preserved before it’s too late.