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Diana Beresford-Kroeger Is a Green Machine

The inexhaustible Irish-Canadian botanist enjoys whisky and shamrocks—but trees are her true love
By Katie Underwood Photography by Rémi Thiérault

Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s early life reads like the stuff of myths, or at least the most heart-wrenching of Disney movies. Orphaned at 13, she bounced around southern Ireland to stay with extended family, an eccentric bunch of highly educated aristocrats who schooled her in math, astronomy and the art of Celtic plant medicine. They had a couple of predictions, too: she’d use her newly gleaned Druidic wisdom to save an endangered modern world, and she’d live in a land of lakes and evergreens. In the late ’60s, that’s exactly where she ended up.

After collecting a few degrees—including two Ph.D.s, in biology and biochemistry—Beresford-Kroeger gained international recognition as a champion for the world’s forests, doing for trees, some argue, what Jane Goodall did for chimps. In addition to films and sold-out talks, her advocacy includes nine books, the latest of which is Our Green Heart, a capstone project that encourages each Earthling to plant one tree per year. 

Oxygen aside, Beresford-Kroeger says, we all have a stake in this burning world—a refreshing message in the era of setting Google reminders to “go outside.” This fall, I spoke to the rock-star botanist about saving the trees and living the simple life from her home in rural Merrickville, Ontario. She was on a break from stockpiling firewood for the winter. 

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Let’s start with your early instruction in ancient Celtic laws and agriculture, courtesy of your many aristocratic aunts and uncles. How did that arrangement happen?

Because I have blue, blue blood, the judge in Cork thought he’d lose his job if he sent me to a Magdalene Laundry—Catholic institutions that housed orphans and young, pregnant girls. Instead, I was allowed to live with my bachelor uncle. As part of the court agreement, I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere—except during summers, which I spent in the south of Ireland with about 22 elderly sustainable farmers and scholars who knew Latin and Greek. 

What kinds of plant-based wisdom did you pick up?

As one example, first thing on May Day morning, we’d take the dew off the shamrocks and rub it on our faces and necks like a sort of anti-wrinkle cream. During my organic chemistry research in university, I found out that hesperidin, a compound in shamrocks, actually serves an anti-
inflammatory purpose in a lot of cosmetic products. Two weeks ago, I did a TV show appearance and the man doing my makeup said, “My gosh, you have very good skin.” 

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s shamrock dew! When did your fascination turn to trees?

Hard to say. Growing up, I always thought the bay laurels on our terrace were trying to tell me something, but that’s a child’s imagination. One of our neighbours, a naturopath named Dr. Barrett, taught me about Ireland’s herbs and trees, and I got fanatical about learning all of their Latin names. And I remember my cousin Pat telling me how the English cut down the great Irish forests—that stuck in my head. By the time I got to university at 17, I was teaching a friend about photosynthesis and I just thought: Oxygen is what makes us human. Take that away and we’re as good as Mars! My fascination is made up of all those things folded together.

You went on to earn “a whole pile of bloody degrees,” as you once put it. You’ve since been a vocal critic of the modern university system and how Western scientists discuss climate change. What are they missing?

Some scientists live in an ivory tower. I was very good friends with E.O. Wilson, the Harvard biologist who coined the term “biodiversity,” and he thought they concentrated on too small an area of study. If you’re a cancer specialist, you should be studying pollution and herbicides. Even engineering and journalism students need to understand climate change. I had two top lawyers visit my house three days ago, and neither of them knew how to properly plant a seed. I said, “If you are writing the laws and regulations for the world”—which they are—“you need to know about nature.”

To quote you, “Climate change isn’t just a question of science. It’s a question of society.” How is Canada faring on the forestry front? What could we do more or less of?

We need to teach schoolchildren how to identify trees and other native species. We need to bring back the Indigenous flash burns in April and November; that was a brilliant, brilliant system. It burns up the annual flora and creates potassium hydroxide in soil—a fabulous fertilizer. And there’s no reason why we should be bringing in firefighters from Australia or New Zealand to help fight our forest fires. We have lots of people here who can be trained to stop fires before they start and get people to safety after they do.

In Our Green Earth, you describe your “bioplan,” which tasks each human with planting one tree annually over the next six years. How exactly would that help?

Every person on Earth has helped to reduce the forest, not just the greedy people. The cheapest way to get oxygen in and carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is to revive forests—green machines. Planted in these numbers, we could reduce the atmospheric CO₂ from 420 parts per million to 300, which would stabilize our weather patterns, add fresh water back into the soil and boost populations of birds, butterflies and bats, who’ll have more food on the way. Many countries have already started planting.

You’ve developed something of a global cult following; a lot of your talks are standing-room only. 

A few years ago, I showed my documentary, Call of the Forest, down on Broadway in New York. The house was absolutely packed—Al Gore’s crowd was there! By the end of the screening, everyone was crying. People were like, “We need to know how you did that.” I said, “I just spoke the truth.”

What about your message, do you think, was (and is) so compelling? 

People are dying, or suffering greatly, because of loneliness; we’ve lost our community. And there are huge environmental problems out there, and no one knows how to help. If you offer them a lifeline and say, “Here’s what will help,” it ties them back to the Earth. We all share a home, and it’s the only one we’ll ever have.

Well, your bioplan is essentially a massive group project. 

I was orphaned, so I don’t really know what that “big family feeling” is all about. But I do think this work makes people feel like a family again. 

Your approach to environmentalism definitely skews spiritual. You’ve talked about having a kind of telepathy with trees—you speak to them and they speak back. Can you share one of those experiences?

I can. In 2013, I was filming Call of the Forest in Japan, and a Shinto priest invited me to climb Mount Kurama at four o’clock one morning to pray for peace in the world. When we reached the top, he went into a wooden confessional box, and I knelt just outside the door. While he was praying, I saw an extraordinary pattern of light on his vestments. Then I smelled a beautiful fragrance. Suddenly, I had an inner knowing that a shogun had lived just down the road in the 1700s. Now... I’m a scientist. I studied physics. I could not tell you what that light was. I hadn’t drunk anything—not even water. I hadn’t taken drugs. I don’t take drugs! It was some kind of mystical experience. That’s what I took from it. 

How do you handle skepticism from people—maybe your academic peers—who might dismiss your tree telepathy as sort of, well, woo-woo

I’m glad they’re skeptical. We need diversity of thought. There are people who don’t believe in God or spirituality at all, and that’s okay with me. But I have a deep resonance with the soil, the life, around me. A big flock of ravens live in my barn, and they all swoop down to see me when I go out into the garden. The birds around my feeders recognize my voice. To me, that’s magical. 

I’ve been referring to you as “the Jane Goodall of trees.” Famous Climate Visionaries is a small club. Have you ever met her?

I haven’t, but, honestly, I’d love to—and Greta Thunberg, too. She’s a marvellous little warrior.

All three of you have been described as renegades and radicals. I want to joke, “What kind of person hates trees?” But I could see you being annoying to a developer. You were also incredibly outspoken during the Harper era, when the government was accused of muzzling climate scientists. Is it strange to have made such big enemies? 

There’s freedom in thinking independently. You see a problem, you go to fix the problem. It’s irritating to those in power. I helped the Anishinaabe protect Pimachiowin Aki, an area at the Manitoba-Ontario border that’s the same size as Denmark; it’s now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I also did a bioplan for a plateau in India and wrote some of the press releases to help the blockade in Fairy Creek—the trees they wanted to take down were thousands of years old! I actually ran into Stephen Harper in the foyer of my hotel a few days ago. He said, “Di, I’m going to go out and buy your book.” So I made one political friend.

You and your husband, Christian, built your home (and your very own arboretum) from scratch on 160 acres outside Ottawa—the dream of so many frustrated city folk. Has life out there been as idyllic as it seems?

I always wanted to live in the country. But also, when I first came to Canada in 1969, women had a hard time getting mortgages. Chris didn’t have the money either, so we decided to save up to buy lumber and a piece of land. My husband’s family members are all aeronautical engineers, so they came and built and had beers on the roof with some local farmers. We had a total hoot. I love the people here; there’s a modesty and honesty in them. And I admire bare-bones living. I suppose I should’ve been in a convent somewhere.

You don’t even have a cellphone—or email! You must have the healthiest nervous system on the planet. Does it ever get too quiet for you?

No. No, no. I have a huge library and I love—oh. Just now, as I was talking, I looked out the kitchen window, and a hawk came down and took one of the blue jays.

Oh, um...

Anyway, the house is very people-friendly. I love company.

Your property also houses the largest private seed repository in the country. Is it true that Canadians come from far and wide for your free seeds?

Yes, and young seedlings, too. There was a gang that visited us once. Oh, what the hell were they called? The riders!

The Hells Angels?

Yes. They came in formation with all their bicycles and jangles and everything. They were tough, but polite, and they got what they wanted: Juglans nigra, the most valuable walnut tree you can get your hands on. It’s used to make furniture. Anyway, they packed those nuts, big as oranges, into their saddlebags and off they went again. Holy Mother, I thought I was going to collapse.

Within your low-footprint life—giving out seeds, making your own clothes—are there any, I don’t know, less virtuous pastimes? 

Whisky. Every night. Maybe a half an egg cup. Back in Ireland, it used to be that a woman caught having a drop of whisky was considered flagrant. Well, I enjoy it. It’s also good practice for people with young children. I mean, they drive you crackers! Just put your feet up for five minutes, have a glass of Glenfiddich or Bristol Cream sherry—which is what I like—and say, “This is my time. Get out of my hair.” 

Your own daughter is grown now. Does she share your love of nature? 

She has a remarkably green thumb. At four, she had her own little triangle of garden, and her blinking cabbage was about 10 times the size of mine! She’s wonderful, but I exasperate her. She thinks I do too many books and try to help too many people. She says, “Mummy, you’ve got to relax.” 

Respectfully, you are 80. 

As of a couple weeks ago. I went around the house saying, “Holy shit, I’m 80! Holy shit, I’m 80!” I celebrated for a whole week.

There’s still so much we don’t know about how trees and forests work. Which scientific question would you like to live long enough to see resolved?

How water can run up a tree, 400 feet in the air. It’s against the laws of physics. Stephen Hawking was very worried about nature. I do think there’s something at the end of a person’s life that makes them realize real beauty was around all the time and they never noticed it. I’m trying to tell people, “For God’s sake, notice it before it’s gone.”