National Geographic - May 2022

05.2022

SPECIAL
ISSUE

THEY’RE KEY TO PROTECTING THE PLANET.
NOW THEY NEED OUR HELP.

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POSTER







FURTHER M AY 2 0 2 2

120 On the Cover

How to Fix Them In California’s Sequoia and
Move trees, plant Kings Canyon National
more, alter their DNA, Parks, research on the
or leave them alone.
What are the best ways effects of climate change
to help our carbon- involves climbing up and
absorbing forests? into the towering giants.

BY ALEJANDRA KEITH LADZINSKI

BORUNDA, ANDREW

C U R RY, S A R A H G I B B E N S ,

AND CRAIG WELCH

CONTENTS F E AT U R E S

PROOF The Future
of Forests
6 Around the globe,
Still Standing Tall climate change and
From beeches in Italy other human distur-
to laurels on Madeira, bances are fueling
a photographer threats to trees.
highlights the many But we still have time
wonders of European to limit the damage.
old-growth forests.
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS B Y C R A I G W E L C H . . . . . . . P. 34
BY O R S O LYA H A A R B E RG
74
EXPLORE
Fighting Fire
THE BIG IDEA With Fire
In Australia, Aboriginal
Lives Depend people follow a
on Forests cultural tradition to
Why we, and all life help conserve their
on Earth, need trees. ancestral homelands.

BY S UZ A N N E S I M A R D ...P. 15 BY KYLIE STEVENSON

DECODER PHOTOGRAPHS BY

The First Forests MATTHEW ABBOTT
A discovery in China
reveals clues about 96
arboreal evolution.
A Fragile Refuge for
BY MONICA SERRANO Forest Elephants
Already imperiled by
A N D S C O T T E L D E R . . . . P. 24 poaching and habitat
loss, the critically
ALSO endangered animals
in Gabon now face
• Seeds That Need Saving a shortage of food.
• Trees and Earthquakes
• Minnesota’s Lost 40 BY YUDHIJIT
• How to Be an Arbornaut
B H AT TAC H A R J E E
28
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
The Phantom
Redwood JASPER DOEST
The albino variety is
rare and mysterious. FREE POSTER

BY NADIA DRAKE The World’s Forests
PHOTOGRAPHS BY With our detailed
KENNY HURTADO charts and maps,
discover how decades
of change have trans-
formed these vital
hubs of biodiversity.

FREE Download Now!

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FORESTS, FOR LIFE

SPECIAL ISSUE: SAV I N G F O R E ST S

DE SPITE SEEING the forest for the trees,
Suzanne Simard once faced harsh crit-
icism for her groundbreaking work.

The professor of forest ecology at the
University of British Columbia bucked
the prevailing theory that a forest’s
trees were isolated individuals. Her
experiments showed that trees live
interdependently, sharing resources
via belowground networks. Simard’s
essay “Lives Depend on Forests” (page
15) emphasizes how ecosystems rely on
those connections, a truth that’s at the
root of this special issue.

Forests keep our world in balance.
They’re the “lungs” of the planet, draw-
ing in carbon dioxide and breathing out
oxygen. They provide habitat for count-
less species. And in a warming world,
they’re our best chance for survival.

Yet our forests are at risk. “It’s a
tough time to be a tree,” senior envi-
ronment writer Craig Welch notes on
page 50. “Earth has lost a third of its
forests over the past 10,000 years, half
of that just since 1900. We logged them
for timber. We cut them to make way
for farms and cattle. We cleared land
to build homes and roads.” Extreme
conditions related to climate change
also are killing trees worldwide.

But it’s not too late to do something.
In an encouraging sign, last fall more
than a hundred world leaders promised
to end global deforestation by 2030.

In this issue we highlight how Aus-
tralia’s Aboriginal people are renewing
their homelands through the ancient
practice of planned burning. We offer
strategies to help save forests. And you’ll
find stunning photographs, graphics,
and maps—opportunities to learn about
and appreciate the forest and the trees.

Thank you for reading National
Geographic.

David Brindley
Interim Editor in Chief

4 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Today, forests (shaded green on this
map) cover one-third of Earth’s land
surface, more than 15.6 million square

miles. Each year, forests and other
vegetation absorb up to a third of the
CO2 released from burning fossil fuels.

MARTIN GAMACHE AND MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF. SOURCES: FOREST LANDSCAPE INTEGRITY INDEX; GLOBAL LAND ANALYSIS AND DISCOVERY, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

Support Nat Geo Explorers ™
Protecting the Amazon!
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PROOF A Norway-based photographer ventures into the
woods to document the beauty, value, and fragility of
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Europe’s old-growth forests.
VOL. 241 NO. 5
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY O R S O LYA H A A R B E RG
6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
LOOKING AT THE EARTH FROM EVERY POSSIBLE ANGLE

STILL STANDING TALL Italy’s Abruzzo, Lazio,
and Molise National Park
is home to some of the
oldest beech forests
in Europe. Thanks to a
location that’s difficult
to access, these trees
have escaped felling
for centuries.

MAY 2022 7

PROOF

In the Abruzzo region of Italy, these beeches (top) are bedecked with abundant lichens, a characteristic of old-growth
forests. Like fallen snow, Cladonia lichens blanket the ground beneath mountain birches in Norway’s Rondane National Park.
8 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

String bogs in northern Sweden feature ridges that link small islands of coniferous forests (top). Laurel forests—found in
Madeira, the Canaries, and the Azores—are living relics of the southern European stands that thrived millions of years ago.

MAY 2022 9

PROOF

The laurel forest of Madeira, a Portuguese archipelago in the North Atlantic, is inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List
in part because the trees support many endemic species, including more than 70 plants and the Madeira laurel pigeon.
10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Growing at an altitude ranging from about 1,000 to 5,000 feet, the laurels are found in the ribbon of mist that
frequently wraps the upper ranges of the islands, creating the cloud forests of the temperate zone.

M AY 2 0 2 2 11

PROOF

THE BACKSTORY

OLD-GROWTH FORESTS ARE EUROPE’S NATURAL HERITAGE.
MOST ARE PROTECTED, BUT ARE THEY SAFE?

I AM DRAWN TO THE serenity and sheer Roaming the intact Scots pine
beauty of pristine nature. Being in it forests of northern Sweden and the
heightens my perceptions and narrows mountain tree lines of southern Nor-
my focus. As I concentrate on the sur- way rewarded me with the sense of
roundings, an inner stillness fills me freedom I always get in the Scandi-
and helps me capture a sense of place. navian wilderness. The beech stands
This was the case when I packed my rising from the steep slopes of Italy
camera equipment and ventured into kept me in awe of the power that for-
some of Europe’s old-growth forests ests shielded from exploitation can
to highlight these unique environ- possess. I feel privileged that I was
ments that have remained intact for granted access to explore and photo-
centuries, despite recurrent threats of graph these wonderlands.
human disturbance.
Excluding Russia, only about 2 per-
The visits were often challenging cent of the forest areas in Europe are
because of unfavorable weather con- primary, or have never been cleared,
ditions and the distances I had to cover reflecting a dazzling richness of life
while going multiple times to the most that once filled vast wooded ecosys-
photogenic locations. But the joy of the tems. Most of the areas are now pro-
experience always prevailed. Hiking off- tected, but as the human population
trail through the foggy laurel forests of continues to grow—with devastating
Madeira, I was enveloped by trees that impacts on the planet and its living
may have been up to 800 years old and creatures—the future of these forests
whose trunks provided me with shelter is far from certain. I, for one, hope that
when clouds released a sudden down- they will still be standing for many
pour. It felt like entering a holy space. centuries more.

In this spot in Romania’s Carpathian Mountains, the tree line is marked with Norway
spruces, which are sculpted in winter by the forces of wind and snow.

EXPLORE IN THIS SECTION

Seed Bank Alarm
The First Forest
Take to the Trees
Ghostly Redwoods

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 241 NO. 5

LIVES DEPEND
ON FORESTS

AMID TREES MARKED FOR FELLING, A SCIENTIST SPELLS OUT FORESTS’
V I TA L RO L E I N S AV I N G W I L D L I F E , H U M A N I T Y, A N D A W A R M I N G P L A N E T.

BY SUZANNE SIMARD

VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA

T T H E H O L LOW E D - O U T T R U N K of the ancient yellow
cedar felt like a cocoon with its soft floor of bark
strips. A mother bear had molded this bed when she
came each year to hibernate and to birth her cubs
inside the 2,000-year-old tree. In the depth of winter,
the shell of sapwood had protected them from the
bone-chilling cold and blowing snow.

A decade earlier, the mother likely had been born
in this same den, near the headwaters of Fairy Creek
on Vancouver Island, off the coast of British Colum-
bia. She would have returned each fall, fattened on
berries and salmon. I picked one of her hairs from
the grain of the wood, the scent of wet grass merging
with the citrusy heartwood and fresh Pacific rain.

I was here with several environmental activists.
Their opponents call them radicals, even eco-
terrorists. They call themselves forest defenders,

M AY 2 0 2 2 15

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

This multigenerational grove
had survived millennia of climatic

variation. Its experiences were
encoded in trees’ seeds and rings,

and the information passed
from tree to tree through

belowground fungal networks.

and they work to fend off the timber company aiming
to clear-cut this forest. Half a dozen young men and
women had greeted me on the newly blasted road
and ushered me over huge logs and deep ravines to
this wizened tree. They spoke excitedly of seeing
screech owls and of marbled murrelets nesting in
the canopy of the cedars, and pointed to specklebelly
lichens draping the smooth bark of amabilis firs.
Those birds and lichens, and many other at-risk
species, live in a community of more than 325 plants,
algae, mosses, and mammals, and untold numbers
of fungi and microbes, in the Fairy Creek watershed.

Without these trees, the defenders knew no
cubs would be born, no lichens would capture the
mountain mist, and no old-growth fungi would
link the matriarchs with their offspring. Huddled
inside the den, the defenders worried about the
impending fall rains and quietly hoped for early
snow to delay the felling.

I G R E W U P I N T H E F O R E ST S of British Columbia. My
uncles and grandfather logged with horses, cutting
down trees so selectively you had to hunt to see
where they’d taken one. Grandpa taught me about
the quiet and cohesive ways of the woods, and how
my family was knit into it.

I followed in my grandfather’s footsteps. I studied
forestry and took jobs in the Canadian Forest Service
and lumber industry. Soon I was working alongside
the powerful people in charge of the commercial
harvest. But I found the extent of the clear-cutting
alarming, and I felt conflicted by my part in it. On
top of that, the spraying and hacking of the aspens
and birches to make way for the more commercially
valuable planted pines and firs were astounding.
It seemed that nothing could stop this relentless
industrial machine.

So I went back to school, and I studied forest sci-
ence. Researchers had just discovered that one pine
seedling root could transmit carbon to another
pine seedling root—but this was in the laboratory.
I wondered, Could this happen in real forests?

I thought, yes, that trees in real forests might also
share information belowground. This was contro-
versial, and some people thought I was crazy, and I
had a really hard time getting research funding. But

16 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

ILLUSTRATIONS: ANTOINE MAILLARD M AY 2 0 2 2 17

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

Defenses that evolved over millions THE ‘WOOD-WIDE
of years helped these trees withstand WEB,’ EXPLAINED

temperature extremes and fend off When Suzanne Simard began
herbivores. But these defenses were working in forestry after college,
conventional theory held that trees
no match for the chain saws. were isolated loners engaged in a
cutthroat Darwinian competition for
I persevered (see “The ‘Wood-Wide Web,’ Explained,” water, sunlight, and food. Timber
on this page). companies planted rows of the most
lucrative species and eradicated
“ D O YO U H E A R T H U M P I N G ? ” I asked nervously. most of the competition—a “plan-
“Helicopters!” whispered a woman next to me tation” approach that Simard felt
ignored the messy genius of nature,
inside the den. We emerged to see the metal dragonfly with its many interwoven species.
churn over the ridge, men staring from tinted win-
dows. Under the swirl of blades, the cedar matriarch In a series of breakthrough exper-
stood at about 115 feet; her family encircled, as if iments conducted while dodging
telling the story of their origin and protecting her. grizzly bears in western Canada’s
rainforests, Simard discovered that
This multigenerational grove had survived mil- trees are connected through vast
lennia of climatic variation, insect infestations, and fungal root systems known as mycor-
windstorms, and had been fed by centuries of salmon rhizal networks. Via this subterranean
runs. The experiences were encoded in their seeds pipeline, they share carbon, water,
and tree rings, and the information passed from and nutrients. The fungi extract
tree to tree through belowground fungal networks. sugars from the tree roots that they
can’t produce on their own, and
Defenses that evolved over millions of years helped in return the fungi ferry water and
these trees withstand temperature extremes and nutrients to the tree roots and even
fend off herbivores. They also enabled this forest to farther, from tree to tree.
accumulate as much carbon—580 tons per acre—as
a tropical rainforest. But these defenses, we knew, The journal Nature published
were no match for the chain saws. Simard’s revolutionary findings
in 1997, with the cover line “The
We ran and slipped across the steep slope to the wood-wide web.” Though her work
small clear-cut carved out of the mountain, where provoked harsh criticism, Simard
the helicopter now hovered over a makeshift helipad. persisted, demonstrating how trees
One of the defenders climbed up the platform and communicate and even cooperate
waved his arms as if to repel the aircraft. between species, relaying distress
signals about drought and disease,
The differences in worldviews between the loggers and trading minerals through a com-
and the defenders suddenly were clapping like thun- plex circuitry that she compared to
der. Everyone needed these trees, yet for different neural networks in the human brain.
reasons. People pitched against people over an indus-
try that no longer serves most well. Then abruptly the Simard has also identified “mother
machine turned and flew down the valley. trees” that act as hubs for these net-
works. They can recognize their own
W E C RO S S E D T H E C L E A R- C U T where the ground was offspring and shuttle extra resources
littered with lettuce lichens that fell with tree crowns, to them. When these elders die,
depriving the forest of crucial nitrogen. On the lifeless they “dump” carbon and defense
bark of fallen giant trunks, we saw drying speckle- compounds into the network,
belly lichens—a species considered vulnerable in uploading food and information for
the province—but the laws were too weak to protect future generations. — K E R RY B A N K S
them, even if the loggers had noticed.

Following a faint trail into the trees, we passed
ankle-high largeflower fairybells, western rattlesnake
roots, and little prince’s pines, all species I suspected
were linked into the fungal networks of the old firs
and receiving nutrient subsidies in the deep shade.
The rare plants themselves provided an additional
source of carbon for the fungi.

Old-growth forests like this one store twice as
much carbon as century-old forests and six or more

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|N A T G E O E X P E D I T I O N S . C O M 1 - 8 8 8 - 3 5 1 - 3 2 7 4

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

times as much as clear-cuts. As the old trees age, We need to shift away
they continue to store carbon in their boles and from a detached, exploitive
sequester it into soils where it is protected. Added relationship with nature
all together, the world’s forests and their soils store toward one that is close,
about 90 percent of global terrestrial carbon. protective, and regenerative.

Soon we stepped into another clear-cut, where A month later, the rains started and the ancient
the sun had burned and dried leaves of the tiny, old- cedar matriarch and her forest were felled.
growth-dependent plants. The fallen ancient trees
were lying in parallel, pointing toward the mill, where The rains continued. After one more month, the
they’d be turned into shingles, sawdust, the odd soils—denuded of trees—eroded, the rivers swelled,
soundboard. Studies have confirmed that logging and in parts of the province, towns flooded.
old-growth forests releases 40 to 65 percent of eco-
system carbon to the atmosphere (even when off-site WHAT CAN BE DONE so that next time this story ends
storage of carbon in wood products is factored in). differently?

The young defenders were already on the gravel First, we must stop converting natural forests to
when I crawled up the final pitch onto the road- industrial plantations and agricultural fields. The
bed. I was shaking, not just from the exertion, but commitment by governments to end global defor-
from the trauma of what was to come. Our police estation by 2030 is a good first step—but the pledge
escort was waiting. As I walked toward the truck, I needs to include ending industrial forestry practices
noticed the chocolate brown humus layer revealed too. Corporations need to take responsibility for the
by the roadcut, six feet thick and rich with carbon. damage and emissions they create in pursuit of profit.
About half of the carbon in this forest was stored
in this layer, the other half in the trees. Once the Second, we can take immediate action to protect
forest floor is pushed around by the clear-cutting and restore old-growth forest ecosystems.
machinery and exposed to the air, about 60 percent
of the carbon is lost through displacement, erosion, Third, we can press for land management policies
and decomposition. My research also suggests that that restore plantations back to natural forests, where
ultimately 90 percent is lost when the replacement we selectively harvest at a lower rate to preserve bio-
tree plantations are logged again. diversity, water supply, and carbon storage. By taxing
forest carbon emissions, we could restore cultural and
BEFORE THE P OLICEMAN pushed one of the defenders social equity to rural and Indigenous communities,
into the cab, he muttered that he was saving her rewarding the stewards with what the polluters pay.
from her own stupidity. I knew better than to argue. This is an easy tool to bring about a just transition.
But as we rolled down the mountain, I started to
explain that it takes decades for clear-cut forests Fourth, we need climate policies that put as
to stop emitting more carbon than they sequester much emphasis on protecting forest carbon sinks
and centuries more to recover the sink strength of and preventing emissions from logging as they do
the original tree stands. That we don’t have decades on preventing fossil fuel emissions.
for these forests to recover from clear-cutting. That
in the hundred years it takes for a forest to mature, And finally, we need to shift away from a detached,
our planet is projected to warm by upwards of five exploitive relationship with nature toward one that
degrees Celsius (nine degrees Fahrenheit), eliciting is close, protective, and regenerative.
mass diebacks, pandemics, and starvations.
We all can learn from the Indigenous Coast Salish
I don’t know if the cop heard, but I kept talking, people of the Pacific Northwest, who have long known
because our lives depend on scientists speaking that trees are our kin and that the forest is made of
out and people taking action. In British Columbia, many nations living side by side in peace. This com-
we have only 3 percent of iconic valley-bottom old- munal spirit will be essential for building alliances,
growth trees left, and we are gunning to log those forming a web that binds us, makes us stronger, and
too. The same story is playing out worldwide. helps us protect our forests for future generations. j

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Suzanne Simard is a professor of forest ecology at
the University of British Columbia and the author of

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom
of the Forest. She wrote the foreword for the new
National Geographic book Into the Forest, available
wherever books are sold and at books.disney.com.

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E X P L O R E | BREAKTHROUGHS

D I S PATC H E S Saving Seeds, by More Means

FROM THE FRONT LINES An estimated 8 percent of plant species—
including about a third of endangered and
OF SCIENCE vulnerable ones—have recalcitrant seeds
AND I N N OVAT I O N that won’t tolerate drying, says a study in
the journal Nature Plants. That means typical
seed bank processes won’t work for those
species, so experts urge additional measures,
such as cryopreservation, to guard against
their extinction. — H I C K S WO G A N

From trees,
a new way
to pinpoint
earthquakes

In Chile after a

magnitude 8.8

earthquake, a team

of scientists from

U.S. and German

research institu-

tions noticed that

streams in their

valley work site

had sped up. It’s

known that earth-

quakes make soil

more permeable

and increase the

downhill flow of

groundwater.

When the

researchers later

took core samples

from pine trees in

CENTURIES-OLD SURVIVORS valleys and along

I N T H E L AT E 1 8 0 0 S A N D E A R LY 1 9 0 0 S , LO G G E R S ridges in a Chilean
C L E A R- C U T P I N E S I N M I N N E S OTA’ S N O RT H WO O D S —
BUT SOME REMAIN, THANKS TO A MAPPING ERROR. mountain range,

A S U RV E Y I N G S L I P U P 1 4 0 Y E A R S AG O spared a patch of old-growth measures of the
pine forest in northern Minnesota from the saws and axes of the
region’s logging boom. Now the trees—the kind that once filled the tree rings’ cells
area’s famed North Woods—are estimated at up to 400 years old.
(left) confirmed
Most of the region’s forests may look mature, but many trees are
less than a century old; settlers and lumber barons clear-cut much that valley trees
of the forest between the 1890s and 1920s. So how were more than
30 acres of old-growth pines missed? According to U.S. government with extra water
records, in the winter of 1882, four surveyors headed into the thick
forests to inventory land features. Cold and living roughly, they after the earth-
apparently rushed the job and made a mistake, categorizing as a
lake the area that was actually forest acreage. Later, when loggers quake had seen
were bidding on that land, it was listed as being underwater and
so was not pursued for logging rights. On this confocal temporary growth
laser scanning spurts and that
That’s a boon to modern-day hikers. They can wander through
what’s now called the Lost 40 and gaze up at the towering pines— image of cells higher, drier trees
one of which is the state’s largest living red pine at 120 feet tall and
nearly 10 feet around. — K AT I E T H O R N TO N from a pine had grown more

in the Chilean slowly. In this way,
earthquake the earthquake
zone, the orange had left an imprint
outline shows on trees.
roughly the
quake time span; The research-
afterward, extra ers also have made

water caused a mark: The tree-

growth spurts ring technique can
that affected
potentially date
tree-ring growth. a seismic event to

within weeks of its

occurrence, more

precise than the

usual metric, the

nearest year. — H W

PHOTOS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP): ZOONAR GMBH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; CHRISTIAN MOHR; DEBORAH ROSE

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E X P L O R E | DECODER

THE FIRST FORESTS Beijing
CHINA
Guangde
County

TAIWAN

Researchers in China have

discovered fossils of the

oldest forest ever found in Asia,

a 62-acre stand dating back

some 365 million years. The

newly unearthed genus, named Strobilus
Guangdedendron, lived when

trees were starting to put down

roots around the world. The rise Megaspores
of forests permanently altered Actual size shown
Earth’s atmosphere and climate. (1/25 inch
in diameter)

BY MONICA SERRANO SEEDLESS SPREAD
AND SCOTT ELDER Guangdedendron repro-
duced by dispersing
snowman-shaped mega-
spores, held in its crown’s
arched branches.

Atmospheric CO2 (parts per million)
Guangdedendron era (372-359 MYA)
Major volcanic activity

1,969 ppm

420 MYA 250 MYA Current
(million years ago) level
413 ppm

Present

CHANGING THE CLIMATE Juvenile Mature
During the Devonian period, tree Guangdedendron
primitive mossy plants evolved
into trees, which gradually grew 3.6-25.3 feet
bigger and more abundant.
They collectively removed ever
greater amounts of CO2 from the
air, causing an “anti-greenhouse”
effect that cooled the planet
and expanded the polar ice caps.

Crinoid Clam shrimp

Jiangxilepis

A clam shrimp and other
possible invertebrate and fish
fragments were also found.

ILLUSTRATION: RAÚL MARTÍN

24

EARLIEST TREES
The first major tree types all
went extinct, but Archaeopteris
is an indirect ancestor of today’s
trees. The group that includes
Guangdedendron, the lycopsids,
survives as much smaller plants.

DEVONIAN PERIOD
(419-359 MYA)

Cladoxylopsid trees
Archaeopteris trees

Lycopsid trees
Guangdedendron

Modern trees

400 MYA TODAY

Other roots from the period Rootlet Hollow

BUILDING BETTER ROOTS

Early tree types had increasingly Guangdedendron’s
main roots divided in
sophisticated root systems. While Main roots two. Lateral rootlets
split into were likely hollow to
the simple radiating roots of pairs carry air in the oxygen-
poor environment.
cladoxylopsids limited the trees’ Cladoxylopsid Archaeopteris
size, branching roots supported tree tree
greater weight and height.

SOURCES: “THE MOST EXTENSIVE DEVONIAN FOSSIL FOREST WITH SMALL LYCOPSID TREES BEARING THE EARLIEST STIGMARIAN ROOTS,” CURRENT BIOLOGY; CHRIS BERRY,
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY; PATRICIA GENSEL, UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL; GAVIN FOSTER, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON; BRIGITTE MEYER-BERTHAUD,
CNRS; ERNEST M. GIFFORD AND ADRIANCE S. FOSTER, MORPHOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF VASCULAR PLANTS; YOU-AN ZHU, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; NOAA

Kingdoms of the
Dadanites and Lihyanites

Distant view of tombs at Dadan.
Photograph by Matthieu Paley

PAID CONTENT FOR ROYAL COMMISSION FOR ALULA

More than two millennia ago, AlUla’s verdant oasis nurtured the

growth of sophisticated and innovative cultures.

Arabia’s deserts have always been peopled landscapes, rich with human
and natural diversity. People have lived in and around them, people have
journeyed across them, and people have found water sources within them
to sustain life.

That is how it is in the AlUla valley, a green oasis of citrus and palms
set amid desert cliffs of sandstone in northwestern Arabia. Here, ancient
civilizations flourished from at least the Iron Age (first millennium BCE)
onwards. Archaeologists working on the neighboring basalt plateau of
Harrat Uwayrid have discovered tools such as hand axes made of local
stone, leading Azhari Mustafa Sadig, archaeology professor at Saudi Arabia’s
King Saud University, to suggest “that the plateau was occupied by hunter-
gatherers as early as the Paleolithic age, more than 200,000 years ago.”

Nomadic hunter-gathering shifted into farming as people took advantage
of the AlUla valley’s natural resources to settle. They began harnessing water
flows within the oasis for agriculture, while continuing to herd sheep, goats,
and other livestock. According to archaeologist Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani,
by 2,600 years ago the oasis hosted the growth of Dadan, a “powerful capital
city” with an economy fueled by farming and long-distance trade.

Ruled by a dynastic succession of kings from a power base within the
AlUla valley, Dadan soon rose to prominence in the region. As Alsuhaibani
confirms, the city’s centralized structure of governance was strong and
stable enough to deploy resources on defense, with inscriptions testifying
to the presence of “guardians” posted to Dadan’s frontiers.

Movements of people along routes of trade were bringing new
commodities northwards, such aromatics including frankincense, a resin
formed from the sap of a tree native to southern Arabia and the Horn of
Africa. Trade of frankincense formed a huge part of Dadan’s economic
success. Farmers in distant southern Arabia would harvest vast quantities
of the resin for transport northwards to markets around the Mediterranean
and elsewhere. They dealt with traders, who then carried the frankincense
on journeys that sometimes lasted months at a time to reach Dadan,
where it was transported onwards. The profits they generated—and the
tolls charged by the people of Dadan—formed the bedrock of the region’s
prosperity for several centuries.

This is Paid Content. This content does not necessarily reflect the
views of National Geographic or its editorial staff.

PAID CONTENT FOR ROYAL COMMISSION FOR ALULA

With trade came new ideas, new remained critical to society, enhanced by
expressions in art, and new ways of writing. innovative developments in the control of
Dadan developed its own writing system, water resources. Water was clearly used for
based on scripts used in neighboring domestic and agricultural purposes, but
oases, such as Tayma and Dumah, and the also appears to have played a role in rituals.
alphabets of southern Arabia. Thousands of A huge cylindrical basin for water hewn
inscriptions survive here now, some formally from a single stone, located in the heart of
composed dedications, others casual graffiti. Dadan next to a building, was likely used
Dadanitic, as the local language is known, for religious or other ceremonial purposes.
was extraordinarily resilient, remaining in Along with its own writing system, Dadan
use in and around the AlUla valley for at had its own gods and forms of worship,
least 500 years. with sanctuaries located in mountains near
the city and on the summit of Mount Umm
Historian Michael Macdonald has Daraj across the valley.
analyzed subtle differences across Dadanitic
inscriptions, noting how shapes of letters The people of ancient Dadan worshipped
vary in a way that is unusual for a script the supreme deity Dhu Ghabat, the meaning
designed purely for carving into stone. of whose name is debated: some interpret
Intriguingly, he says, the development of it as “master of the grove,” others as “lord
letter forms “suggests that the script was of the forest,” and some as “god of absence.”
used to write in ink on materials such as The Umm Daraj mountain sanctuary is
papyrus or potsherds.” Archaeologists dedicated to Dhu Ghabat, where devotees
continue to hunt for examples. including Lihyanites, visiting traders, and
Dadan’s resident trading colony of Minaeans
It is natural to presume that the power from southern Arabia would make votive
of Dadan waxed and waned. In particular, offerings with frankincense, as well as small
we know about a period of conflict with figurines in sandstone depicting humans.
Nabonidus, king of distant Babylon, who Architectural elements have been discovered
claims in the sixth century BCE to have bearing decorative motifs of a snake, perhaps
invaded Dadan’s home region, killing its king as “a protective function,” suggests historian
and occupying its land. Husayn Abu al-Hassan. Inscriptions also
suggest, as Michael Macdonald notes, that
After Nabonidus, at some point around “worship of Dhu Ghabat may have included
2,500 years ago (it isn’t known precisely the offering of the ‘first fruits’ to the deity.”
when), control over Dadan shifted to the Other gods worshipped in Dadan at this time
kings of the tribe of Lihyan, who ruled the include Ha-Kutbay, the goddess of writing.
region for several centuries, perhaps until the
first century BCE. But the material evidence Art clearly mattered to the ancient
that survives suggests that Lihyanite rule peoples of Dadan—Dadanite and Lihyanite
perhaps didn’t greatly disrupt Dadanite artistry involved in carving statues is
culture. remarkable. “Where and how [did] the
inhabitants acquire such mastery of the
In what was now the kingdom of rules of sculpture—anatomical proportions,
Lihyan, men and women both owned volume, perspective?” asks archaeologist
property in their own right. Agriculture Said al-Said. He believes that, although there

were cultural interactions with neighboring
cultures in Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia,
and southern Arabia, it’s likely that this
Dadanite skill demonstrates a cultural
evolution unique to this part of Arabia.

Rock art that may date from the Dadanite A Dadanitic inscription showing a mixture of formal and
or Lihyanite period includes hunting scenes, informal letter shapes.
camels, ostriches, and abstract depictions
of people. Archaeologists have discovered Photograph by L. Nehmé
statuary at certain sites, including
anthropomorphic likenesses that have
been interpreted as either Dadanite gods or
images of living individuals, carved to show
homage and dedication to the gods.

Alongside the people of Daan’s notable Bust of an ex-voto, excavated in Umm Daraj sanctuary,
skills in politics, trade, science, and art, AlUla.
evidence suggests dedication in how they
buried their dead. During the Lihyanite Photograph courtesy of Royal Commission for AlUla
period, people carved tombs into the cliffs,
designed for one person or more. Also
visible today, set into sandstone cliffs, are the
“lion tombs,” carved tombs adjacent to one
another, each of which is flanked by reliefs
of lions, perhaps as divine protection for the
tombs’ inhabitants.

“The kingdoms of Dadan and Lihyan Detail of a carved lion above a tomb at Dadan.
played a major role during the first Photograph by Matthieu Paley
millennium BCE,” says Alsuhaibani,
confirming the importance of a place and To learn more about AlUla visit
a period of history long overlooked. Today, www.nationalgeographic.com/journey-to-alula
excavations and investigations into the To plan a trip to AlUla visit www.experiencealula.com
cultures of the people of Dadan continue
throughout the AlUla valley, shedding new
light on their artistry and ingenuity. With
each new discovery, it becomes clear that
the desert—once thought of as barren or
empty—in truth has always hosted life. The
Dadan oasis, among other oases and centers
of activity in this region, exhibits human
achievement and drama as rich as anywhere
on our planet.

E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE Stroll a canopy walkway, take
a tree-climbing class, find forest
PLANET
lodgings, play leaf detective.
For more stories about You too can be an ‘arbornaut.’
how to help the planet, go to
BY CHRISTINA NUNEZ
natgeo.com/planet.
As deforestation occurs
worldwide at an alarming rate,
what could make us care and
act? Perhaps spending time in
and among trees, as National
Geographic Explorer Meg
Lowman does. A biologist,
author, and self-described
“arbornaut,” Lowman raises
awareness of forests’ vital
role—and helps developing
nations create jobs—by
promoting sky-high walkways
and tree canopy tourism. “The
canopy houses some 50 per-
cent of terrestrial biodiversity,”
she notes. Here are some ideas
for arboreal appreciation.

Become a leaf detective.

Take a closer look at the char-
acteristics of leaves on the
trees in your area. “There are
so many adventures on the
life of a leaf surface,” Lowman
says. “You just need to get out
your journals and start record-
ing observations over time.”

Climb trees—safely.

Relive the arboreal ascents
of childhood but with today’s
technology. Search online for
specialized climbing courses to
get the training and equipment
needed to scale large trees.

Explore a canopy walkway.

Gaze out from a walkway high
in the trees, like those Low-
man helps build around the
world. You’ll find an inter-
national map of walkways at
treefoundation.org.

Stay in or above trees.

Look online for lists of tree
houses for visits or lodging.
Another option: fire towers.
Now that the U.S. Forest Ser-
vice is using more technology
to aid humans’ fire detection
efforts, some former lookouts
can be rented for overnight
stays at recreation.gov.

The National Geographic
Society has funded the
work of “CanopyMeg” Lowman
since 1998. Learn more about
its support of Explorers at
natgeo.com/impact.

PHOTO: ERIKA LARSEN

TAKE A
SMART STEP
TOWARD A
MORE SECURE

FUTURE

Establishing a charitable gift annuity
with the National Geographic Society
is a great way to receive guaranteed
payments for life and save on taxes—
while protecting our planet for

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EXPLORE

PHANTOM IN
THE FOREST

BY N A D I A D R A K E PHOTOGRAPHS BY K E N N Y H U RTA D O

A AC RO S S A ST E E P C A N YO N , a ghost floats in the
darkness—a phantom in this redwood forest,
S A N TA C RU Z C O U N T Y, C A L I F O R N I A somewhere in California’s Santa Cruz County.

IT’S AN EVERGREEN We slip-slide into the gully, landing in spongy
THAT’S WHITE. IT LIVES piles of discarded needles, ferns, and poison oak,
and then we scale the other slope. A great horned
LIKE A MOOCHER AND owl hoots once, twice, three times. Dawn is just
LO O K S L I K E A G H O ST. beginning to tickle the treetops, but down here,
THE ALBINO REDWOOD IS beneath the forest canopy, it’s still chilly twilight.
A GENETIC MARVEL,
W R A P P E D I N M YS T E RY. A few feet away, the astonishingly white tree
hovers like an otherworldly apparition, its crown
28 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C high above our heads. It’s an albino redwood. An
enigma. A biological improbability—an organism
that shouldn’t exist.

“My guess is that this thing is probably a hun-
dred years old, or more,” says graduate student
Zane Moore, who studies redwood genomes at the
University of California, Davis. “It’s one of the tallest
in the county.”

Rather than being evergreen, the tree is everwhite,
its needles soft and waxy. Normally Sequoia semper-
virens, the coast redwood, survives by harvesting
sunlight and turning it into food—but this albino
is missing a crucial component of the basic cellular
machinery it needs to feed itself. Instead, it taps into
the root system of its pigmented parent and steals
sugars and nutrients.

Although rare on Earth, albinos grow naturally
within the fog-drenched coast redwood range.
They’re a scientific puzzle—mutated trees that are
somehow allowed to survive, even as parent trees
discard other shoots. A few are tall like the tree we’re
visiting, but most are shorter and shrubbier. Others
have sprouted high up in their parent trees. Maybe
50 or so are naturally occurring white-and-green

M AY 2 0 2 2 29

EXPLORE

chimeras, organisms with two distinct sets of genetic State Park, where a well-trodden loop trail allows

instructions. One of these trees, which was growing visitors to experience the majesty and monstrosity

near a right-of-way in Sonoma County, is so beloved that is an old-growth redwood grove: thick, towering

that when railway builders threatened to cut it down trees with twisted bark and gnarly burls, split crowns,

in 2014, local residents forced the company to dig it fused trunks, and even a burned-out cavern big

up, load it onto a truck, and relocate it. enough for dozens of people to squeeze into.

Surrounded by ferns and fragrant, dewy leaf lit-

T H E T R E E S F I R S T A P P E A R E D I N P U B L I C AT I O N S in ter, these massive trees dominate the landscape

the mid-1800s, when settlers started noticing their and lend an almost primordial appearance to the

curiously creamy foliage. Since then, and with a forest. Moore’s first albino, in contrast, is a roughly

few exceptions, the albinos’ locations have human-height mix of brown and white branches,

been closely guarded to protect them from tucked into an unmarked grove near the

trophy-clippers or decorators, like those park’s railroad tracks. He found it in 2011

who once festooned an opera house with OREG. UNITED after he watched a documentary about
the snowy sprigs. STATES the albinos and decided to go see one

The towering albino we visited at Coast redwood for himself. “And around the same time,
dawn has been known since the 1970s, range (Sequoia I’m realizing, Oh, I could do botany as
sempervirens)

says Moore, now one of the world’s Santa CALIF. a living?” Moore recalls. “You know, I
experts on the trees. He and a colleague Cruz really like plants.”

are keepers of the albino redwood map, an Everything about albino redwoods is

evolving guide to the roughly 630 known albi- tinged with mystery. How they survive, and

nos growing between southern Oregon and central sometimes appear to thrive; their physiology; their

California. Some of these trees have been cultivated anatomy; the mutations that make their bone-white

by enthusiasts. Others, maybe a hundred or so, Moore color. Even the scientific literature describing the

has stumbled upon accidentally, including the one he trees is sparse. Recently, scientists went hunting for

glimpsed while snarled in beach traffic on a notorious albino-producing mutations but were thwarted by the

California highway. Mostly, he says, he chases them redwood genome itself—a colossal, just sequenced

based on historical reports or tips from locals: “It’s assemblage of 26.5 billion base pairs distributed

like a treasure hunt.” among six pairs of 11 chromosomes. (Humans,

Later in the day, he shows me the first albino he by comparison, have three billion base pairs and

ever encountered. It lives in Henry Cowell Redwoods 23 pairs of chromosomes.)

This photo, of “a gleaming bush nonchalantly sprouting next to the curving metal,” was made in 2021. An albino redwood is
also growing by the railroad tracks in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park in an 1877 photo that researcher Zane Moore has.

NGM MAPS. SOURCE: U.S. FOREST SERVICE



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In the realm of the California In 2016, Moore discovered that some albinos
redwoods, humans are the contain much higher levels of cadmium, nickel,
and copper than their green parents—as much as
fleeting apparitions. The oldest 11 times the amount needed to damage a plant. He
tree displayed in the park dates wondered whether the albinos were sequestering
those heavy metals and in some way benefiting their
to two centuries before the parent trees, which researchers suspect could oth-
birth of Christianity. erwise choose to shut off the albinos’ food supply.
So far, there’s no consensus among scientists about
Albinos may look delicate, but they’re survivors: Their what’s going on. And now, in a twist, researchers at
white shoots are often among the fastest to regrow from Princeton University who are studying how carbon
flame-damaged landscapes. and hydrogen atoms travel through the trees’ meta-
bolic pathways are using the trees to possibly better
reconstruct ancient environmental conditions.

People often say that albino redwoods are
ephemeral—ghosts that materialize and vanish,
phantoms that hide in plain view. But in the realm
of the California redwoods, humans are the fleeting
apparitions. At Henry Cowell Park, a ceremoniously
displayed stump came from a tree that sprouted in
a California forest two centuries before the birth of
Christianity. The oldest tree in the park has been
soaking up sunlight for more than a thousand years.

Yet even the supposedly frail albinos outlive us.
Moore shows me one growing near the park’s rail-
road tracks that also appeared in a photograph from
1877—a gleaming bush nonchalantly sprouting next
to the curving metal. And he tells me that a few miles
away, a huge tree exists that was first described in 1912.

“It was fully cut down in the 1970s, but it’s still
growing back,” Moore says. “You want to see a spec-
tacular albino? That’s it. Covers 728 square feet, and
it’s about 15-ish, maybe 15, 20 feet tall on average, just
this big clump of white. It’s really something else.”

Of course we go see it. Casually growing between
two houses, the tree is a riotous gathering of milky
branches erupting in every direction—a thicket large
enough to get lost in—that has regrown in just 50
years. Now, every threat to redwoods is also a threat
to the albinos, Pittermann says, because “their vigor
is impacted by the health of the parent tree.” But this
razed tree’s regrowth is the same phenomenon seen
after forest fires: White shoots often are among the
fastest to regrow from flame-damaged landscapes.
“It’s amazing, right?” she says.

Researchers do know that, in addition to lacking I G R E W U P I N T H E A R M S of an old-growth redwood
photosynthetic machinery, the trees have almost no grove, a place that feels more precious every day. Yet
control over water loss through small openings in it took me nearly 25 years to spot the bushy cluster
their leaves, which happens more quickly in higher of albino sprouts along one of my childhood trails:
temperatures. The albino trees also have weaker a froth of snow-white needles the size of a minivan.
wood than the pigmented trees, perhaps because Like most people, I’d traipsed by it multiple times,
they can’t easily make a compound called lignin oblivious to its striking colors or perhaps dismiss-
that’s crucial for building cell walls. “It’s hard working ing it as a trick of sunlight. To this day the tree, an
with these long-lived plants,” says ecophysiologist embodiment of the peculiar and the unlikely, is
Jarmila Pittermann of the University of California, thriving. Though precisely where, I won’t say. j
Santa Cruz, who did the work on water loss. “I’m also
fascinated by the fact that there really are a lot of Contributing writer Nadia Drake enjoyed this sylvan break from
them here” in Santa Cruz County, she says. covering the James Webb Space Telescope and other space
oddities. Photographer Kenny Hurtado, a longtime chronicler
of coastal California culture, is now based in the Midwest.

HEAT
AND DROUGHT

ARE
KILLING
OUR FORESTS.

BUT
WE CAN
LIMIT THE
DAMAGE—
IF WE
CHANGE
COURSE NOW.

BY CRAIG WELCH

35



PREVIOUS PHOTO

Standing nearly 217 fir, considering its
feet tall and estimated circumference, height,
to be more than 500 and crown size. Old-
years old, Big Lonely growth forests around
Doug, on British the world face bull-
Columbia’s Vancou- dozers and chain saws,
ver Island, was saved and climate change
in 2011 by a logger poses new threats:
impressed by its size. It intensifying wildfires,
proved to be Canada’s beetle attacks, heat,
third largest Douglas and drought.

GARTH LENZ

SEQUOIA NATIONAL FOREST

CALIFORNIA

FIRES IN THE PAST incense cedars.
TWO YEARS KILLED UP While sequoias can
TO A FIFTH OF THE often survive ground
LARGEST SEQUOIAS fires because they
have few low branches,
On a burnt slope in this fire blew flames
the Sierra Nevada, into the crowns. Cli-
their only native home, mate change and fire
giant sequoias—some suppression are fueling
more than a thousand bigger wildfires.
years old—stand like
black daggers among F L A P : Embers rain from
the other dead: white the crown of a sequoia
firs, sugar pines, that was ignited by a
windblown ember in
2021. The tree survived.

SUE CAG;
JEFF FROST (FLAP)



NORTHERN COAST

AUSTRALIA

39 MILLION MANGROVES El Niño of 2015-16
DIED OF THIRST HERE finished them off by
causing a temporary
Years of high heat 16-inch drop in sea
and drought had level here, drying out
stressed mangroves the trees’ roots. This
along hundreds 2021 photo shows lit-
of miles of the Gulf tle recovery; the green
of Carpentaria coast. belongs to a short
Then the intense mangrove species that
survived the die-off.

MATTHEW ABBOTT



EASTERN SIBERIA

RUSSIA

IN 2021, FIRES TORCHED regularly in this region
21 MILLION ACRES IN A about twice the size
PLACE KNOWN FOR COLD of Alaska. But in 2021,
four times the average
Snow blankets a boreal annual area ignited,
forest that burned potentially releasing
the previous summer ancient carbon from
in the Sakha Republic. permafrost and
Small fires occur transforming forest
into grassland.

ANTOINE BOUREAU

GRANDE PRAIRIE, ALBERTA

CANADA

QUAKING ASPEN, as they call the die-
NORTH AMERICA’S MOST offs that have struck
WIDESPREAD TREE, since the turn of the
IS DYING IN DROVES century. But they know
drought and rising
Forest scientists are temperatures make
struggling to figure the trees more suscep-
out a response to tible to disease and
“sudden aspen decline,” insects—such as the
tent caterpillars that
defoliated this stand.

GARTH LENZ