The Mother Tree Project (MTP)

The Mother Tree Project (MTP) stands at the forefront of regenerative forestry research, addressing the urgent need to safeguard and steward British Columbia’s forests amidst escalating threats from global climate change. Mother Trees are the biggest trees in the forest that are connected and communicate with the other trees and plants in the forest. Through their research, Dr. Simard and others have discovered that trees are connected below-ground via a vast fungal network. Trees form mycorrhizae (literally meaning “fungus-root”), which are symbiotic relationships between trees and fungi. These mycorrhizal fungi have many branching threads (called mycelium) that grow out from the root tip of a tree and connect with the roots of other trees and plants to form a mycorrhizal network. The mycelium spans vast areas connecting trees and plants across a forest in an expansive underground network.