Tal Engel on Where are the Elders Parallels between Dying Ecosystems and Cultures

Описание: Tal Engel is a forest rehabilitation practitioner & a regenerative farmer with a thousand-tree apple orchard on his family farm near Merville, BC. His relationship with the forests around him & grave concern for their future led him to develop a novel approach to forest restoration that is gaining traction regionally, nationally, & internationally. In 2024, Tal founded WolfTree Integrative Forest Rehabilitation, a not-for-profit society dedicated to transforming people's relationship with forests. WolfTree offers forest rehabilitation services, conducts research, & engages in advocacy, especially on how industrialized forests lack resilience. Tal is pursuing his MSc on forest resilience, aided by a team of experts in sustainable forestry & soil ecology.

Today, Tal explores the similarities between the social & ecological conditions for sustaining both forest "Tree Elders" and human "Old Growth Cultures," & how industrialization impedes the development of both. Elders were essential elements of cultures: they were the holders of meaning & purpose, vessels for a culture's past & arrows to its future; they were healers, sages, prophets, & leaders. Most importantly, they had the full range of relationships that define a culture & enable it to prosper. Today finds “the elderly,” a pale shadow of the Elder. The loss of the Elder is a symptom & a catalyst for cultural collapse. To understand ourselves, we have always sought out our reflections in the natural world—what we have done to the once thriving natural cultures of our planet, especially forests, tells a haunting story that is ultimately about what we have done to ourselves.