I have this article in Stundin which is some thoughts about planting trees and thinking like trees, our relations to nature and landscapes, and other things: Játningar villutrúarmanns: Svar við grein Benedikts Erlingssonar: „Þurfum að hætta að umbylta náttúrunni, en í staðinn umbylta sambandi mannkyns við náttúruna.“
Here I will post the English version:
Confessions of a Heretic
On October 9th 2022, Benedikt Erlingsson wrote a beautiful piece in Stundin with the title “Predikun fyrir trúaða” (Preaching to the Choir). The title is fitting because it was a sermon he gave to the The Icelandic Forestry Association (Skógræktarfélags Íslands) about his passion for forests. I admit, I share that feeling. I grew up in Southern Scandinavia (Sweden and Denmark) and trees and forests have been a silent but important part of my life. They have shaped me without me knowing it. I only really noticed when I moved to Iceland where the lack of trees affects me.
When I first saw the Icelandic summer houses out in the country side, out in the open and completely exposed, I had a strange feeling of discomfort. A kind of agoraphobia perhaps – like, the feeling that one could just fall into the sky. I could not see how one could feel relaxed and safe in a summer cabin with not trees around it to give shelter. When I go to Sweden to visit my father I always have an urge to go into the forest that grows next to his house. A big, dense and dark forest where trees are allowed to live and die. The forest makes me calm and gives me a sense of home. So I understand what Benedikt is talking about, when he calls us “arboreal beings” (trjá-verur).
And yet, I am not sure Benedikt’s or my feelings can or should speak for everyone else. Benedikt puts this aboreal being into human nature itself, but to talk about a universal human nature is always dangerous and should be done carefully. There is a risk that you are only speaking about yourself and projecting your thoughts and feelings onto the rest of humanity. Thereby, those who are not like you inadvertently become less human. I am sure this is not Benedikt’s intention. So, before we talk about “human nature” we should listen to others and realize that there are many different ways of being human and of being in general.
Different Perspectives
I Have spoken to Icelanders who are not comfortable around trees and forrests. They articulate a feeling of not being able to see very far, of the horizon disappearing. I sense the opposite: the forest encloses and gives me a feeling of protection. But to a different person I suspect it gives something like a feeling of claustrophobia. To me the open widths and endless horizons make me feel less in control, but I can see how being able to see everything around you might make another person feel more in control. To such a person, the forest does not give a sense of home or of security and comfort. It does the opposite.
It is all a matter of perspective. Each of us have different lived experiences and we are shaped not just by our culture and social interactions but also by the landscapes we grew up in. Different feelings about trees are no less valid - and no less human - than mine or Benedikt’s. Of course, these feelings do not speak for all humans or all Icelanders either. But how humans feel in different landscapes is an important topic, whether they are urban design (like in Reykjavík where we are losing all our green areas) or wild nature (which is never unaffected by human influence).
Benedikt’s sermon made me think of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Deleuze acknowledged that Europeans had a tendency, like Benedikt, to “think like trees” or to be arboreal beings. But unlike Benedikt, he did not think this was an essential part of human nature. There are other ways of being, other ways of thinking. He mentioned the Americans, including the authors Henry Miller and Walt Whitman, who he thought had a different way of thinking. They were not shaped by the European forests but by the American prairie, and so, they thought more like grass (Deleuze: Seminar on Cinema and Thought, December 11, 1984).
This is of course a metaphor but Deleuze thought there was a great value in thinking more like grass. Thinking like a tree means thinking linearly, with a central theme, and everything else growing out of that. Grass is not like that. Grass can be a rhizome: it’s roots can form a network where each thread can go in multiple directions and connect with any other part. There is creativity in that. There is also resilience. To continue the metaphor: A tree might be strong, but it is also vulnerable. It can fall or be destroyed – especially if the soil it grows in is shallow. The roots of many trees are smaller than people think. For Deleuze, grass is a better metaphor for how the human brain actually works: our synapses are constantly connecting in new and different patterns, like rhizomes, not in a centralized and linear way like a tree.
Reading Deleuze made me think about whether there is an Icelandic way of thinking shaped by the Icelandic landscape? Maybe it is more like lichen: an assemblage of many different organisms that come together to create life on this island rock in the ocean? Maybe it is more like the stone bramble (hrútaber) or the scrawny birch trees that are more like shrubberies – both grow close to the ground and their distribution and forms are shaped by the wind and the soil. I don’t know. But I suspect it is not a tree-like way of thinking.
Making Peace with Nature
The lack of forest in many places in Iceland (let us still remember that Iceland does have some pretty big forests here and there) is something that affects many immigrants who move here. Most of us are used to having trees around us – big trees that provide shade and shelter. This is a thing that can make it hard to feel “at home” in Iceland. So I understand Benedikt’s desire to turn Iceland into a home by planting forests everywhere. But ultimately, it is somewhat arrogant. The idea that humans must conquer nature and turn it into something else for their benefit is dangerous – both for nature and the people who live in it.
But it is also arrogant in the sense that he apparently does not think that Iceland is a real home for human beings. Humans are tree-beings he says, and since Iceland has so few trees, it is not really a place where humans can feel at home, so we must turn it into something it is not. Taken seriously, it means there are no Icelanders – only Europeans who are stuck on a tree-less rock where they don’t feel at home. I don’t think that is true. I don’t know what it means to think like and with the Icelandic landscape, but I do know that we humans must learn to think and live more in harmony with the specific nature we live in. Thinking ecologically means asking how I can adapt to and be part of the landscape, not “how can I make the landscape fit my needs.”
Of course, it is not only a matter of how we humans feel. There is also the question of biodiversity and the native Icelandic flora that is being pushed out and strangled by the invasive arboreal beings. They matter too. There is also the matter Benedikt is aware of: that of the global climate we all depend on and in which trees play an important role. Deforestation needs to be stopped because the trees that already exist absorb CO2. But that does not mean that planting new trees is always the solution.
The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has repeatedly warned against planting trees in ecosystems that have not historically been forests – especially exotic trees like pine is in Iceland – as it can be detrimental to local biodiversity and does not have clear benefits for the climate (IPBS-IPCC: Biodiversity and climate change, 2021). In fact, recent research shows that planting forests in Northern climates, like here in Iceland, might have negative effects on the climate. The newly planted trees contribute very little to carbon mitigation (if that was our concern we would focus on restoring our wetlands which absorb a lot more carbon) but by covering the landscape in green, when in winter it would normally be white, decreases the albedo effect - white reflects more sunlight – and thus creates more warming (Portmann et al: “Global forestation and deforestation affect remote climate via adjusted atmosphere and ocean circulation”, Nature Communications, October 4, 2022).
There is no consensus among scientists that planting forests in Iceland is good for the climate. As everything scientific, it is a complex issue that needs to be carefully assessed, not taken as a matter of faith. If Benedikt was preaching to the already converted, I confess myself to be a heretic. I love trees, but I worry about being part of any church. When a personal feeling becomes the dogma of an institution, dangerous things can happen. Instead of transforming Iceland or other forms of geo-engineering we should be asking what we need to change in our lifestyles, our culture, and our way of thinking, so that we feel at home on this planet and this rock as they are, not as we want them to be. Or as the United Nations Environmental Programme says: we need to move from “transforming nature to transforming humankind‘s relationship with nature” (UNEP: Making Peace with Nature, 2021).