There are 3 objectives that I proposed to achieve in this Post:
1.-To know, with the greatest precision, the potential of the plant kingdom as a whole – trees fundamentally – as a source of health and well-being.
2.-To know, as far as possible, the benefits obtained from this renewable source with respect to health and well-being, and in direct relation to the practice of human walking in open areas (outdoors).
3.-As a consequence of the knowledge of these two previous points, seek and achieve a great motivation for a greater number of people to walk and perform this activity more frequently.
Trees, fundamental pillars of the plant kingdom, play an irreplaceable role in the sustainability of life on our planet. These majestic beings are not only silent witnesses to evolution, but also act as guardians of the health and well-being of all living things. Its ability to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen is essential for maintaining atmospheric balance, thus ensuring proper respiration for all creatures on Earth. The positive influence of forest resources on human health and well-being is undeniable. The diversity of tree species contributes to the creation of microclimates, improving air quality and providing cool shade. Furthermore, the presence of trees in urban and rural environments acts as a natural buffer against noise pollution and excessive solar radiation. One of the most direct and accessible benefits that trees offer is the space to walk and enjoy nature. Forest areas and wooded parks become havens of serenity where humans can escape from the urban hustle and bustle and reconnect with the primordial essence of life. The simple act of walking among trees not only promotes physical activity, but also has therapeutic effects on the mind and spirit.
Phytotherapy, the medicinal use of plants, also highlights the beneficial potential of trees. Since time immemorial, various cultures have taken advantage of the healing properties of certain tree species to treat diseases and promote health. Forests, in this sense, are authentic natural medicine cabinets that house a green pharmacy of great value.
The importance of preserving and sustainably managing forest resources becomes a collective responsibility. Uncontrolled deforestation threatens the very basis of our existence, endangering global health and environmental balance. Recognizing the potential that trees offer as a source of health and well-being is essential to ensuring a harmonious future for all forms of life on our planet.
Trees are not only witnesses of history, but are active architects of planetary well-being. Its presence reverberates in every corner of the globe, sustaining life and offering a constant reminder of the interconnection between nature and human health. Walking among trees is not only an aesthetic pleasure, but also an act of gratitude towards the inexhaustible source of benefits that these wonderful beings generously provide us.
1.-POTENTIAL OF EXISTING FOREST RESOURCES
A.-Geographic data of the Earth:
Total surface area of the globe: 197 million square miles, equivalent to 510 million square kilometers = 51,023 million hectares.
Area covered with water: 139 million square miles.
Land area: 58 million square miles.
World population: 8,000 million inhabitants
B.-The vegetal genus as a whole, that is on the terrestrial surface, excluding the one that is located in the waters, has the following power:
The surface of forests represents 27% (4,060/15,000 x 100) with respect to the total terrestrial surface.
The forest area destined for recreation is 4.6% (186/4,060 x 100) with respect to the total forest area.
Density per inhabitant:
– The density is 0.023 hectares of forest designated for recreation per inhabitant (186/8,000), equivalent to 230 square meters per person.
– The world’s population has, on average, half a hectare of forest per inhabitant (4,060/8,000), equivalent to 5,000 square meters.
C.-Requirements
How many hectares of forest are required per inhabitant for recreation?
How many hectares of forest are biologically required per inhabitant?
In order to try to answer the above questions, greater efforts will have to be made in the future to determine them; however, let us proceed to quantify what, in this era, the plant kingdom -forest resources- is generating for the benefit of mankind. Let us first analyze what power a tree requires to raise its sap from its roots to the top at its highest points.
The main parts of a tree:
Considering a tree 10 meters high, from its base to the highest point, plus 1 meter of depth -on average- of its roots:
H = height = 11 meters
The mass that this type of tree moves in 24 hours amounts to 0.09 m3. Although sap has a higher viscosity than water, we will consider that this measure represents 90 kilograms, and of these we only consider the 8.5% that the tree moves to the specialized parts – leaves, branches, stems and trunk – to transpire and release it to its environment.
M = mass of sap = 0.007650 m3 = 7.65 kg.
The power required daily for a 10 meter high tree to spread part of its nutrients to its environment is 0.019 HP (13.76 watts).
Globally, the plant kingdom spreads 4.73 Kg / Hectare, so that the global spreading reaches 4.73 x 4,060 Million = 19.2 million tons of nutrients, equivalent to 2.4 Kg/inhabitant.
Globally, in one day vegetation generates a power of 0.006 HP/Hectare, or 0.006 x 4,060 million = 24.36 million HP, equivalent to 18,100 million Watts, in one day.
2.-RECEIVING ENERGY FROM TREES
Let’s see what it means to walk among the trees and how we receive their energy.
When I walk in a forest, either through gaps or on accessible trails, the walk impacts me in a different way. I suppose that the trees give off some odors, gases and certain particles invisible to our eyes, which impact our body (physical and mental) and generate a more pleasant and comfortable state. Of course, they must be impacts of different types on the organism that increase creativity and cognitive functions. As if the trees around us, when we walk, introduce their effluvia into our thoughts and physical bodies.
Of course I do not have a formula to prove this, however, I am fully sure of all this, because I have always experienced these effects in my person when I walk through the trees of a park or a forest. It would be necessary to investigate more thoroughly and with greater rigor these aspects that are generated when walking inside a forest, when we see ourselves surrounded by trees and plants.
All my senses – external and internal – are impacted: smell, sight, touch (all our skin), hearing, even the gustatory sense, as well as the also called spiritual senses (Orientation, Spatial, Common Sense, Intuition, Memory, Perception, Cognitive, Imagination, Fantasy, Muscular, Movement, Temporal, Proportions, Aesthetic): Post WALKING AND THE CARDINAL POINTS and future Post THE WALKING AND THE EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSES), are put to work in a more intense way when I go for a walk immersed among the trees of a forest or a park.
“A peripatetic individual means one who wanders around an atrium, park, courtyard or promenade. It was probably derived from the word “peripatos” which was used to designate a “covered walkway or path”. It may come from “peripatoi” which is how the covered portals of the Lyceum were designated; but this word was also used to designate the habit that Aristotle had of walking under the fronds of the trees while reading”.
Probably Aristotle and other people did know about what trees emanated, that is why they used to walk under their shade.
I reiterate: I have no doubt about these major effects that are generated and occur in my body every time I walk in places where the density of trees and plants is high.
Some time ago I realized that the grass and plants in my garden, when I watered them with water from the municipal intake, did not grow or flower in the same way as with rainwater. Surely trees produce and release particles and gases, which the wind incorporates into the clouds, carrying a great diversity of nutrients (natural and chemical?), which in turn precipitate to the earth integrated with rain. Thus, in this way, all beings in the plant kingdom are naturally fertilized. The same surely happens with the animal world, including the human being, but we have not yet discovered it or assimilated it, much less taken advantage of it. In the Post WALKING IN THE RAIN. PART I, I recommend walking in the rain, expressing the following: Although I have occasionally experienced walking with some rain during the day, and also at night with “rain in the form of dew”, I do not have many conscious experiences on this under walk the rain. Everything indicates that I should take more into account this uniqueness of walking, under the circumstances of doing it in the rain. So, I will begin to investigate this but above all I will experience the different options of walking in the rain, and regardless of this, I invite you to experience it immediately and let’s give it more strength and power, through this absorption of energy through contact from our body with the rain, to the mind and spirit. […]We will have to experience it to know what direct repercussions (real and obvious) rain has on the body, the sensations it provokes, how our senses respond, and what are the mental and emotional effects (levels of satisfaction and well-being) that a short walk in the rain generates. It is something that we do not usually do, let’s go for a walk one day with a light drizzle.
Since that date when I published this Post I have been researching about it, and it has taken me to several scenarios, one of them is this one, that of the trees.
In a synthetic way I have been able to discover in various information sources that trees:
1. They have their own way of walking, although they are always fixed in the same place, since they sprout from some seed (Future Post WHY DO TREES AND PLANTS NOT WALK?
2. Trees are shared, they do not compete with each other.
3. Trees are in constant communication with each other, of the same and different species, to alert themselves to external harmful factors (physical environment, animals, insects, etc.).
4. Their roots are the superior mechanism of order and functioning of trees.
5. The leaves are the engines that deliver the nutrients that they self-produce.
6. Your most important allies are fungi in all their varieties and sizes, macroscopic and microscopic.
7. They have their own way of breathing, and every time they do so they support life throughout the planet, several tens of thousands of kilometers from their place where they are settled.
8. They have their own way of thinking, but they do it only to help the beings that are in their own space.
9. They have their own way of walking and they do it for the benefit of the rest of the creatures that surround them.
10. They have their own circulatory system and only tend to share and not compete with beings of their own species.
11. They have their own memory system that allows them to always keep in mind those aspects that are beneficial to their species, as well as those that are harmful.
SHARE, DON’T COMPETE
The formula of the trees is one that has been mentioned since ancient times, but it seems that we are deaf: Share, NOT compete, Collaborate, NOT compete; However, the ancient Greeks began to try to erase that formula from our minds, that of cooperating (Posts PLAY AND WALK-PART I. NO TO COMPETITION, YES TO FUN; GAME AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM-PART II. NO TO COMPETITION, YES TO FUN).
The plant kingdom is cooperative by nature. The word “vegetable” is sometimes used in a pejorative way: “it is a vegetable” it is said, trying to mean that it does not move, that it does not act, that it does not perform. However, at a planetary level, it may be – after water – the one that plays the most role in revitalizing life on earth, and for human beings to continue existing.
The word vegetable comes from the Latin vegetabilis, vegetalis which means to grow; which are beings capable of germinating, developing and multiplying. This also for the animal kingdom; However, perhaps in vegetables the word multiply is so strong that it provides a more universal force that radiates to the rest of the terrestrial entities, and even more so to each other.
Let’s discuss a case of help between the trees themselves through their roots.
If we analyzed from the point of view of “stability” of the bodies, we could find a relationship between their height, trunk (thickness) and roots (length, extension and depth).
Schematically we can illustrate this with the following figures:
Larger roots generate trees with greater heights
There are some species of trees that are strengthened by the network of their roots, thereby increasing their support; which allows them to grow to greater heights.
It is known of certain species in forests and jungles that if they existed in isolation, they would not grow beyond a third of the height they reach, since their roots would not support them at a greater height. For this reason, they develop in communities of the same species, helping each other – a collaboration of roots: radical network – because their roots intertwine, forming a network such that they expand their support of stability at their base, although their roots are not very extensive nor very deep.
Intertwining their roots generates mutual help in various orders; and one of them is that the trees manage to grow taller.
This reciprocal collaboration can be observed in the network of roots, where the support base expands to considerable lengths, depending on the area of germination (gestation, sprout) because the distances between one individual and another are generally very short. , since they are very close to each other, as if they were accommodated under a planned system, in time and according to their own developments.
Small roots: small trees, large roots: large trees. Exception that is made when some species collaborate with each other to sustain themselves better, even if they have little root development, since they create radial platforms that increase their stability, so they reach great heights, which they would not be able to achieve otherwise.
They communicate with each other, to share and help each other in other aspects as well. They use an information mechanism through their root connections: an important underground root network. They help each other in terms of the threats they have from aggressive elements of different types and from exchanging substances. In this feeding scenario, fungi and bacteria found in the subsoil intervene, carrying out a symbiosis between all of them that mutually feed each other; the fungi and bacteria feed the plants and these feed both organisms, a complete and integral system.
This reciprocal help is also achieved between the same trees of the same species and between individuals of different species.
PROPAGATION OF THE SPECIES
One of the functions that the animal pursues in general, when it walks, is to propagate its species, being that it seeks its food, shelter, its partner, etc., to survive and this is the first step to achieve its permanence on earth and manage to transcend his species.
The tree – and almost one hundred percent of any other plant species -, to achieve its propagation, performs any of the following 2 functions. One of them is to produce its seeds and spread them on the earth, either close to it, or with the help of the wind, it projects them hundreds or thousands of kilometers from its permanent site. The same thing happens – on a smaller scale – relying on water, whether by large or small water currents, or rainwater that carries it away from the primary environment. The other range of actions is to let one of its branches fall to the ground, either by detaching a young stem from its main body (cutting) or just letting it bend to make contact with the earth (layering) and leaving it to take root, giving birth and thus developing a new plant of the same species.
Perhaps its path to propagate is very slow, but it does carry it out in its own way, in the way I have described.
POWER AND NUTRIENT PROCESSING
Now, let’s see how much energy is generated when we walk.
The energy that is generated by vegetation in one day – as we already saw – amounts to 24.36 million HP, equivalent to 18.1 billion Watts, in one day. Now, if all human beings walked every day, for one hour, in the world, they would generate 1.89% of that energy.
Transpiration of plants is the vital moment in which they begin to spread, transfer and transmit their nutrients. Surely this point represents, from your entire process of generating your self-nourishment, the elimination of excesses or waste that have allowed you to feed yourself over a period of time.
This transpiration reaches 0.004729911 m3/hectare/day, which on a global scale represents an emulsion of 4,060,000,000 x 0.004729911 = 19.2 million cubic meters that are spread in the Earth’s atmosphere by plant transpiration every day.
The following table shows the power exerted by both the trees and the feet of a human being, normally during their life. A comparison that allows us to notice the great potential that is hidden from our eyes, but that is realized every day in our living environment.
According to the data in the previous table, what FORCE our feet produce in their walking performance, when combined with the rest of the elements of the lower extremities, to produce a power of 9 Watts or 0.012 HP, it is required to walk 30.45 Kilometers or 18.91 Miles to perform equal to a water pump for 60 seconds of work. A tree 27.5 meters high produces the same power for 9.45 days of its life. This tree lives 30 years on average, so it can perform this operation 1,158 times throughout its life, releasing its beneficial substances into its environment.
NUTRIENT DISPERSION
A) THE WIND AND THE AIR
The capacity that trees have to raise all those substances that they process – RED ARROW – is pointed out, taking them from the ground through their roots and from the environment with their leaves, trunks and stems, to the highest parts of them, and they are the leaves. by which, once processed, they dislodge them to the outside environment, disseminating them to places – with the help of air and wind – up to hundreds of kilometers away from their permanent site.
It is not necessary to calculate the capacity of the wind to drag these particles away from the immediate environments where the tree is located, a movement that manages to place them tens, and sometimes thousands of kilometers away; likewise, the capacity observed in the atmosphere that allows these essential compounds to be suspended in the air for hours, days and months, due to the same characteristics and properties of these particles. Capacity that the wind has by itself and also helped by the seas and oceans.
A) WATER AND RAIN
We expressed in a previous Post: “We must experience it to know what direct repercussions (real and obvious) rain has on the body, the sensations it provokes, how our senses respond, and what the mental and emotional effects are (levels of satisfaction and well-being). ) which generates a short walk in the rain. It is something that we do not usually do, let’s go for a walk one day with a light drizzle” (Post WALKING IN THE RAIN. PART I).
It is normal for rain to contain part of those substances that trees constantly disseminate, which is why we can receive them through this hydrophilic medium.
We also express in the Post WALKING BAREFOOT. PART I: “It is advisable to lie down for a few minutes on your back and also facing the ground; and then roll on it, taking care not to hurt yourself, doing it carefully and slowly; appropriate clothing. The more direct contact we make, during our walks, with our ‘earth’, the more the energy flows within us. I invite you to walk barefoot from time to time and let us give energy and power, through this absorption of ‘energetic sap’ through the contact of our feet with the ground, to our entire body, mind and spirit.” He recommended contact with the earth, and now also with rainwater, to receive that ‘energetic sap’.
Water currents contain part of these nutrients. In addition, we also know that there are water sources where they contain certain components beneficial to health, and that they also contain some substances from the subsoil.
It is common to find advertisements where they offer or recommend treatments based on certain muds that contain miraculous substances, and surely they are composed of these “energy saps” coming from both the plant kingdom (organic) and the mineral kingdom (inorganic).
We have explained the beneficial impact that the Plant Kingdom has on the health and well-being of human beings when they walk outdoors in this second section, however, there are other benefits that I have pointed out in countless Posts for 5 years.
3.-INDUCTION AND MOTIVATION SO THAT MORE PEOPLE WALK AND DO THIS ACTIVITY MORE FREQUENTLY.
I hope that with my calculations about the potential of the Plant Kingdom and the benefits that it transmits to each of the human beings, I have managed to motivate them to go for a walk today and forever.