KEC Presents -> Call of the Forest

“World-renowned tree expert and author Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s film crosses continents and disciplines to show how trees sustain all life on Earth

Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s documentary Call of the Forest reveals how our health and the health of the Earth depends on the state of our forests. The film’s Toronto opening is May 12 and 13. (Photo: TARO PR)

Diana Beresford-Kroeger can trace her profound knowledge of the influence and power of trees back to her childhood in Ireland, … where she was taken in and raised by Irish elders who adhered to the ancient, pre-Magna Carta Celtic Brehon laws. “There,” she says, “I was taught all the laws of the trees, the laws of nature and its medicines.”

That was a reality that set her on a path that married folk wisdom, spirituality and history with her eventual work as a surgeon, medical biochemist and botanist, producing several books and, most recently, the documentary Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees.

In the film, Beresford-Kroeger (a Fellow of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society) journeys from Canada’s boreal ecosystem to the forests of Japan, Ireland and California, drawing together other field-leading tree scientists and revolutionary tree science, foresters and activists working to protect and replant the world’s northern forests.