Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Diana Beresford-Kroeger

Pioneering Botanist, Biochemist & Author

‘Diana Beresford-Kroeger is one of the rare individuals who can accomplish this outwardly simple but inwardly complex and difficult translation from the non-human to human realms.’ 

- E. O. Wilson, Arboretum America, a Philosophy of the Forest

Born in 1944 and orphaned at a young age, Diana was taken under the wing of an uncle and the community of Lisheens valley, Cork, who raised her in the Ancient Brehon tradition of Ireland. Her uncle was an avid reader and chemist and nurtured a love and appreciation for knowledge, the arts and sciences in Diana who attended private schools during the year and spent her summers in Cork and Kerry. It was her great-aunt who taught her of the early Irish Brehon Law which was a civil rather than a criminal code in Ireland’s history. These progressive laws ‘uniformly discountenanced revenge, retaliation, the punishment of one crime by another, and capital punishment. Reparations were paid to the family of the victim.’ It was here too, that she was taught about her ‘folk lineage’ and told that as the ‘last child of ancient Ireland’ she ‘one day would need to bring this ancient Celtic knowledge to a troubled future.’ 

By the 1960s and in her early 20s, Diana understood that climate change would be ‘one of the most important challenges we face in the modern world.’ She set about studying, and went on to achieve a Masters in botany and two PhD’s - one in biochemistry and the second in biology. In 1967, she made a breakthrough and discovered genetic smearing, ‘which changed the way scientists studied microcosms under a microscope.’  She also discovered cathodoluminescense in biological systems, which is now used to detect cancer! Despite her progression in the field of science, Diana’s heart lay with the forest.

Taught from a young age about the ancient Celtic knowledge of trees, she began to collect trees from all around the world which led to another great discovery:  the significance of mother trees at the heart of the forest and the role of trees as a ‘living library of medicine that have a chemical language and communicate in a quantum world.’ Having spent years immersed in the scientific community, Diana realised that there was a gap in what those in that community knew and how that was being relayed to the public. There was an urgent need to tell the public about the significance of the degradation of the world’s forests and what that meant for future generations, so she moved into writing, lecturing, and broadcasting to get the word out. Over the next number of years, Diana published articles in the US, Canada and internationally, as well as seven critically acclaimed books on nature and specifically trees. 

In 2016, a documentary – Call of the Forest – based on one of Diana’s books, released alongside an app that encouraged its users to plant trees native and specific to where each user lived. During the filming process, Diana met Sophia Rabliauskas, leader of the Poplar River First Nations, and together the women campaigned to have the entirety of Pimachiowin Aki – ‘a massive area of virgin boreal forest’ - declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After an initial rejection, they were successful in 2018 after Diana ‘journeyed into the forest to prove the importance of its biodiversity by identifying plants that exist nowhere else.’

Now, Diana is campaigning to ‘clone and map the entire global forest’ and create a ‘living bank of tree seeds’ so that our global forests are preserved for generations to come.

DIANA’S BIOPLAN

Diana’s Bioplan is an ambitious plan encouraging ordinary people to develop a new relationship with nature, to join together to replant the global forest. 

Diana says, “All things are connected on planet Earth, from the burning eye of the volcano and the brilliant colours of a butterfly’s wing, to the chlorophyll of plants and life within the seas. In recent years the tapestry of life has been damaged.”

The Bioplan is the tool to mend the holes in the fabric – so that forests will be planted, the seas will have fish and marine life, the air will have more oxygen and less carbon dioxide.

This is the pledge of mankind to share this planet because it is our divine contract to ourselves and to all others.

How to Participate

  • Everyone needs to plant one native tree per year for the next six years.

  • If we can globally plant 48 Billion Trees over the next 6 years we can reverse the effects of Climate Change.

Other simple strategies to help:

  • Encourage your friends and neighbours to plant native trees.

  • Protect the trees in your neighbourhood.

  • Protect the native forests in your community by getting involved and writing letters to your government representatives.

Discover more about Diana’s ambitious but vitally important work here. 

Sources:

Beresford-Kroeger, Diana, The Sweetness of a Simple Life, (Random House; 2013).

‘Brehon Laws,’ on Encyclopaedia Britannica, online at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Brehon-laws [accessed 14 April 2023].

‘About Diana,’ on Diana Beresford-Kroeger Global Forest Revival, online at: https://dianaberesford-kroeger.com/about-diana/ [accessed 14 April 2023].

‘About Diana,’ on Call of the Forest, online at: http://calloftheforest.ca/about-diana/ [accessed 14 april 2023].