Speaking for Trees: Science, Morality, and Well-Being

Source: vee terzy/Pexels.

When I first learned about Gregory Tague's new book, Forest Sovereignty: Wildlife Sustainability and Ethics, in which he speaks for the trees, I thought, Wow, this really is a novel take on the importance of forests not only for these amazing beings but also for all of the other flora and the fauna whose lives depend on trees. I wasn't wrong. Here's what Tague had to say about his challenging and forward-looking book.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you write Forest Sovereignty?

Gregory Tague: In 2020 I published An Ape Ethic and The Question of Personhood. A reviewer asked why I focused on apes as ecosystem engineers, giving them priority over other species. That observation encouraged me to broaden my thinking, so I melded concerns about climate change and deforestation (raised in my book The Vegan Evolution) with the work done by all forest organisms, from microbes in the soil to trees. I was keen to understand how wild plants and animals could gain sovereignty over forest lands and adjacent territories, so I delved into political philosophy to see if those authors discussed plant and animal life. Most had not.

MB: How does your book relate to your background and general areas of interest?

GT: Growing up in Brooklyn in the 1960s I was science-oriented. I loved looking at slips under the microscope or exploring the moon through a telescope. I spent long summers upstate New York examining ants and spiders in the dirt, observing lizards and tadpoles in creeks, climbing trees, and roaming wooded areas or fields. I read George Gamow and others. My intention was to study earth and environmental science, a new program then for the City University of New York, but my path changed. Nonetheless, my focus on literary studies fostered valuable tools: I was a close and careful reader (analyst) who could take a range of ideas from different disciplines and assemble something new (synthesis). About ten years into my academic career as a professor, I discovered Charles Darwin. That changed my outlook as a scholar and writer.

MB: Who is your intended audience?

GT: Anyone could approach this book—at least parts. The design is such that an educated reader could get through the Preface and Summary, the Introduction, and the Conclusion easily. Discarded parts of the book revised for accessible reading appeared online at the American Philosophical Association website and on the news site The Ecologist. The main chapters deal exclusively with political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes and John Locke up to John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Michael Walzer. There are many other thinkers, including Hannah Arendt, Mary Midgley, and Martha Nussbaum. A number of scientists enter the narrative, too. As a non-scientist, I try to make those aspects of the book comprehensible, whether it’s the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis or the tree science of Suzanne Simard.

Source: Peter Lang Ltd./with permission.

MB: What are some of the topics you weave into your book and what are some of your major messages?

GT: The forest issue is a motif that becomes a moral theme. Like Rachel Carson in Silent Spring, my view is that industrialized human attitudes and practices are contaminating nature. I stay close to the land, like Aldo Leopold. I emphasize via Peter Kropotkin how forest systems consist of mutually beneficial behaviors and are not the fierce battlegrounds typically depicted. Related to the central topic would be E.O. Wilson’s book Half-Earth where he focuses on preserving vast tracts of forest to support biodiversity and hence climate health. John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy also take this approach in their book Ever Green. The difference is that my training enables me to weave into the science moral philosophy and political theory.

MB: How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

GT: I take an environmental subject and present a new understanding of how humans (not counting Indigenous people) could better treat the earth. If you read some political thinkers, whether Plato and Aristotle to contemporaries, you find that everything is anthropocentric. Only humans count; plants and animals are either ignored or treated summarily as commodities for humans. Unlike Indigenous people who live in close relationships with the land, modern humans (since the scientific revolution and colonialism) have not learned how to share earth with other species. We look out the window and see timber, not trees; meat, not wildlife; land for building, not a meadow for bees. I use my skills as a literary scholar in light of evolutionary studies to read political theory from the perspective of a nonhuman.

MB: Are you hopeful that as people learn more about the importance of forest biodiversity for climate stability there will be a shift in their environmental positions?

GT: The book offers a proposal challenging us to work together on the community level (and for young people in colleges) to establish parliaments to discuss granting sovereignty to forest plants and animals in order to stabilize the climate crisis. I invoke on a number of occasions the importance of people voting for candidates who evince an ecological ethic rather than voting for wealthy business people who will emphasize the economic prosperity of a few over planetary health for many. I started this book in early 2022 with U.S. legislation geared toward addressing the climate crisis. I wondered if the book would be relevant. The book is now pertinent with pollution deregulation and energy-policy reversals by those who voted for “change.” Let us hope that through these efforts young people will vote for a greener future.