I see different strata here.
I hear the trees swaying.
Yes, it’s like a cushion made of leaves.
What are these insects called, flying up there?
Right up here.
It's gone.
There it is.
It’s back, it’s back.
It’s back.
Oh, it looks like a small wasp.
Oh, I'm scared of wasps.
No, it's not.
This is just the visible part, right? Then, underneath the roots, we have a whole different world. Fungi linked to roots, right? They travel kilometres, if needed. And they also help this whole structure...
Hold up, right?
Yes.
Hold up and build up.
Some fungi are able to attach themselves to the roots and travel hundreds of kilometres, and they provide some kind of protection and nutrients for the plants. And the plants also end up benefiting from it, and they provide other types of carbohydrates.
Why do your patients lie down when... in their psychoanalysis sessions?
Lying down allows a suspension of time, a state of contemplation. So, it invokes the possibility of looser, freer and, at the same time, deeper thoughts, that are less attached to perspective. When you're sitting down, what happens is you don’t allow yourself to dream, to be carried away by dreams, right? Sort of.
Now, who is the patient here?
Now, here?
Is it the trees watching us now? Are they analysing us?
Look, why not? It sounds like an excellent idea.
It looks like the pine cones are the eyes and they're watching us.
It really does.
And does closing your eyes help, or not?
I think it’s helpful for some people, for others it’s scary.
Naíma, what is a landscape to you?
When we see things that are on the horizon.
To me, a landscape is a place where you can find the horizon, inside and outside yourself.
But this here is a landscape. I can't see the horizon.
I can, but looking upwards.
The horizon has depth. But to me there's always that thing of the vanishing point.
It's funny that here, where we’re standing, there’s one kind of landscape. And if we move 100 metres, we'll have a totally different landscape...
Completely different.
This is more of a wooded area, and next to it you have the bushes.
Every image is a landscape. A landscape lies in the ability to see the landscape.
The frame?
Yes.
Is there a landscape at sea, too?
At sea there's only sky and horizon. Here we can be camouflaged. Anyone watching us wouldn't see us. We would be occluded. We're insignificant. But at sea we become an almost unique point of reference. And we can’t find shelter.
It doesn't look like we're camouflaged. Because we can see the sky. But people can't see us.
It depends on the perspective.
Right. If you're on an aeroplane…
An aeroplane with binoculars.
Or a drone.
What will the climate be like when I'm your age?
If you go down in latitude towards the equator, you'll notice the changes taking place. That’s what’s spreading now to higher latitudes.
Drought?
That's one of the effects. Drought, a major one. For example, a cluster of Pyrenean oak, which used to do perfectly well at a certain latitude, is starting to have some trouble, and we probably won't have that species there in a few years. We might have to work with different species that currently occur further south, in drier environments.
But that's only because you have all this diversity of trees, right?
Yes, in this area you can see lots of pine trees and cork oaks and blackthorns. But all around us, if you move away a little, you can already see some areas that have been invaded by acacias and other invasive species.
What we're hearing here, the birds and the insects, maybe we won’t hear it in those areas, because they like to be where there's more food, where there's more diversity. Some people call acacia areas “green deserts”.
Really?
Because there's no... It’s all there is, right? There isn’t anything else.
I was thinking, that’s just like human relationships. The greater the diversity, the richer the relationships we build.
Right.
And that's the worst place, because to top it off it has that terrible thing: it looks green, right? It looks green, but then it isn't.
Right.
Some things are like that, isn't that right, Naíma? They look beautiful, but then they're not so beautiful.
Yeah, I've been told...
Have you been told that?
... that tarantulas look scary from a distance, but up close they look cute, and butterflies it’s the other way round. So sometimes I'm scared of butterflies, because I've seen their faces magnified.
They're scary.
Yeah.
Which trees will no longer be here?
Certainly some of these pines, but of the ones we're seeing here, I'd say that the cork oak is probably the most resilient. Although some of these pine trees we’re seeing here also work quite well as what we call pioneer species, right? They enter areas that are more disturbed, and they grow faster, and later give way to other trees that grow more slowly.
And how do acacias operate in these underground routes?
There's one, for example, that doesn't have deep roots at all, whereas another one is very difficult to uproot and contain, precisely because it grows...
Deep roots.
... a very strong root system. Those underground fungi, mycorrhizae, which then end up circulating nutrients between them, almost like the internet of trees, they’re all connected. When will the forest we’re planting now become an actual forest?
The oaks will maybe take thirty years.
That long?
Maybe in ten or fifteen years a maritime pine tree will already be decent-sized.
Is this one dry? No.
All the pine trees that are dry, that are misshapen, that are tilted, those will be the first to go.
No.
You're the only one who can't do this, come here. You're injured.
He's debilitated.
You can see that this one’s dry and rotten.
I've slept in many forests. And it's always a safe place, despite the spiders.
I've gone camping.
And what was it like?
There were lots of ants and spiders. I was also bitten by a wolf spider.
And do you think the forest… the ants and the spiders, what do they think of you when you go there?
They think I'm a giant and that I'll hurt them too.
Will you?
Right, but...
Who's more afraid of whom?
I think it's them. But I'm also very scared. All the animals that are here, except for a few plants, they do good. But I think everyone here is scared of some animal here.
I don't like snakes.
Yeah. Sometimes I’m afraid of human beings too.
A bit of fear also protects us, doesn't it?
Yes, no? Cortisol rises.
Exactly.
It's better to be afraid than not.
It helps protect us from a few things, doesn't it?
Right.
Some people say: Oh, this snake isn't poisonous, right? And then they go and get bitten.
The hardest thing is to control our fear.
Exactly, that's right.
Just now, when you were talking, I saw a red or orange spider.
Let me see.
I've already blown on it.
Oh, nice! See? You managed to blow the spider away.
Are we human beings also nature?
Look, I feel we are.
I think all living beings are.
I think we're all born more on nature’s side, but then over the course of our lives we maybe lose a bit of that...
Awareness.
Yes.
Oh, a beetle. By the...
It's all right.
Oh, my God!
That one’s my friend, too.
No, no, no, no.
No, no, no, stop!
There you go.
But it's not a cockroach, don't worry. No.
It was just another bug.
Taking a walk.
I had a dream once where I was in a lift and the doors opened and a forest appeared...
Really?
... with a waterfall, and lots of animals. I didn't know most of the species. I think I just made them up in my head. And then, in the distance, way in the distance, there was water and a sunset.
We dream because otherwise life would be unbearable. During the night we can digest all the day-to-day things, work on them...
And what happens?
... get creative, so that the next day we're a bit little more emptied of that weight. With more alternatives.
Yes, but when the dream is bad...
When it’s a nightmare? In a way, nightmares help you go through the fear without experiencing it completely, isn’t it? If you’re faced with something that’s very distressing, when you're awake, it's unbearable. If it's at night, it's true that nightmares can be unbearable, but even so, you have some distance…
Yes, yes, yes...
... and so you’re more able to work on it.
What is the forest like in Romania?
Cold. Damp. Not very clean. The green is a lot more intense there.
Since this is very intense, it must be a lot more there.
Yes.
I can't picture it.
Yes, yes, it's a lot more intense.
How do you read the sky?
I see... the way the sea breeze gradually increases every day... And... this is news from the sea. Although I can't hear it, no matter how hard I try, these are its signals.
The clouds passing overhead.
Yes.
It's these effects that create the local weather.
To feel the effects of something you can't see.
What are the things you can't see?
It’s things, for example, like thoughts, dreams and thinking. You think a lot too, don't you?
I do.
I thought so.
And I ask questions.
Can you make me a cloud?
You're creating almost like an anticyclone. In a small world, it could be a cloud because it's saturated with water. Which means that, with the change in temperature, while rising through the atmosphere, it could form a cloud.
Why is it that satellite images are always from above, and we're always looking from below?
Here’s the thing, the satellite can give us an image that we can never obtain. Even on an aeroplane, we don't have a wide-angle view. Only the satellite can truly tell us that the planet is blue. The borders that we talk about so much, they don't exist after all.
Which satellites are best?
To me, it's the constellations that allow us to save people.
Allow?
They allow you to raise the alarm about things that happen.
For example?
Both at sea and in wildfires.
If there’s one now, will they be able to see it or not?
The satellite will be able to see us. It will be able to hear our alert and send help to us.
Do trees know if it's going to rain?
There are animals that, by sensing changes in pressure, can anticipate the weather that’s coming.
Do you have patients whose psychological problems anticipate society's problems?
I’m not sure they do. Above all, they show that something isn't right. And what often happens is that the person in pain is hushed. They're silenced, right? You just look at the individual, as if the problem only belonged to the individual. Whereas most of the time the individual is saying that there's a bigger problem. Like in a family, right? Usually the person who gets sick, in inverted commas... Sometimes it's the person who hasn't forgotten how to feel.
Hm-hm.
What do you think of that, Naíma? What do you do when you're sad?
Sometimes I sing.
Are there spirits in this forest?
I’ve come across…
Vibes?
No. But I've come across some stuff, candles...
Hm-hm.
Food. Coins.
Weird.
Traces of rituals, ceremonies, that they do in the middle of the forest at night. Yes.
This means that there are people who... who believe there are spirits here, who are summoning them.
I suppose so.
Has anyone died here?
I don't know. There are some houses nearby. Increasingly, there are houses in areas that are...
Restricted?
Yes. There's the Pisão Social Support Centre, which is down there. It's a facility for people with issues...
Mental health issues?
Yes, and it really is a kind of house in the middle of the forest. And they don't get out much.
This idea of isolating people as a way of protecting them can have quite the opposite effect, isn’t it?
Right.
What about isolating the forest? Will it protect the forest?
Right.
Or is bringing people to the forest going to protect it more?
Usually, direct contact with things is what really allows us to protect them, isn't it?
We have seen that, in the case of wildfires, for example, in many instances they are started by humans, and they are often associated with areas that are more densely populated. On the other hand, the people who live here probably end up being... They live closer to the forest...
They’re more aware, right?
Yes.
Because the idea of building walls around things is always the most dangerous one, isn't it?
Yes, I think the way this was designed works well, it's an open space.
Hm-hm.
Fifteen years ago, we didn't have much of the infrastructure we have now, and the animals and...
Which animals do you have here?
Look, there are rabbits, which we hadn’t seen for a while, foxes... There are badgers...
What?
Badgers are smalls animal that wander in the bush. One of the ways we can see that they're out here is by mounting cameras on trees, and whenever there's movement they’re triggered.
Are there squirrels?
Actually, there was squirrel a few months ago, near this place, but then there were no more, just that one.
And in Romania?
Bears.
Bears?
Bears?
Bears. No? “Bears” is the word.
Vulpe. Fox.
Fox.
Fox!
Wolf?
Wolf.
What is “wolf”?
Wolves.
Are we animals?
No, because we have a conscience.
But we used to be, why are we no longer animals?
Because we have evolved.
Some people say we're still animals.
I don't think we are.
I would tend to say yes, we are, but...
Sometimes, at home, I’m like a monkey.
When we remind ourselves that we are, we're a little better.
Right, in a test I answered that we weren't animals.
And the teacher marked it wrong.
Yeah. That's why I got 99%.
You only got that one wrong.
Are there any hunters here?
In some places, yes. This place isn’t a hunting area, although hunting is necessary, isn't it? In some places. Here, for example, we've been introducing some animals recently, such as roe, deer.
Roe?
Yeah, it’s similar to Bambi.
And these animals, they can be quite useful in helping us manage the forest, they eat the plants, they manage to reduce the fuel load, the vegetation, as a way of preventing fires. But then there's also this part, which is maybe frowned upon by some people, but hunting is actually necessary, as a way of managing, of controlling stocking density. Yes.
Can it also be a passion here?
There's the sport aspect, right? Some people do it just for the fun of getting the trophy. And they pay a lot of money to do it. It’s allowed in some areas.
But not in the Pisão park. Or is it?
No.
Oh, good.
In theory, we won’t get shot.
Hugo, can you shoot?
I've fired a lot of guns, but fortunately it wasn't to kill anyone, or any animals. It was just for training.
Phew.
In the woods?
It was in a place where the animals no longer find the sound of guns strange, because they're used to it. In Mafra, the wild boars and all the other animals...
They're already fully adapted to the sound.
... to the noise. So they didn’t find that abnormal activity strange.
So you're in the military?
I have been, I have been.
Look, here's one.
Take that.
Nice!
Why do we feel small in the forest?
Naíma. I think we realise that things are much bigger than us, don't we?
Right.
When we feel very small in the forest, it also means that we're alone there, doesn't it? And so we take our ghosts, our fears, and put them all in the forest. Because the forest kind of represents the unknown. Most of the times, when we dream of forests, they're places that we’re not quite familiar with yet, that can hide things that scare us. For example, the sounds of the forest at night. And then we begin to try and understand what they mean.
Sometimes I'm scared.
Sometimes you're scared, right.
Of the sounds of the forest at night?
Yes. Sometimes at night, it seems... like the trees have scary faces. Because sometimes at night, when it's very quiet, we’re afraid of the things we don't know yet.
And then in daylight everything is OK.
In daylight, everything is OK.
Right. What are you afraid of?
One thing I think I'm afraid of is dying before my parents.
Huh?
Yes. I have a thing about that.
Dying before your parents?
Yes. I don't want to die before them.
I'm afraid of dying. Very afraid.
I’m afraid of dying before my time.
Yes.
Whatever that means.
I'm afraid of being murdered.
I don't feel ready.
I’m afraid of hatred. I'm afraid of hatred.
I'm afraid...
Of people who aren't afraid of the forest?
Huh, of suffering. I'm afraid of that.
What do you mean?
Not death. I'm not afraid of death.
But some people are afraid of dying.
I think all living beings, all of them, are afraid of dying. Because that's not our purpose, so we always try to...
It's instinctive.
... overcome... Our instinct is always to overcome. To try and survive. One more time.
How would you like to die?
You would be immortal.
I would like to die in peace. That's all.
Exactly.
Sole requirement.
I would like to die... when I’m...
A very old, very old, very old lady.
When it’s my time. My time to pass on.
Do you lose your fear when you get older?
I think that when you age well, you lose some of your fear.
I don't think so.
I think it depends on the fear.
I've seen young people happily risking their lives.
How?
Oh, fear in that sense.
And the elderly... they're barely breathing, but they still won't give up. Barely any nails, no teeth, and they're clinging to that light that hasn't gone out yet.
No teeth? Some old people have teeth.
Some do.
Like my grandmother.
And others have dentures, and they do just as well. They still hold on to that spark.
What do you do with these trees?
For example, these shorter ones, they’re dominated by the others that have grown more.
Like that branch?
Yes, those crooked branches.
We can cut them down so that the tree grows better. And the trees that are too thin, dominated by the others, we cut them down. And since it's not a huge amount of wood, what we usually do is...
Do you make paper?
Not from these ones. The eucalyptus trees, yes. When there are a lot of trees together, a company comes and cuts down the eucalyptus trees, and takes them to a factory. The pine trees, since usually there aren't many of them, they’re also cut down. We leave the wood, we have it match the contour line, as we say. It stays on the ground, which also serves to control erosion in these steep areas.
How much is a tree worth?
Around twenty-something euros per cubic metre, maybe.
What does it depend on?
In the case of eucalyptus... the price is lower, 11 euros. In the case of pine, it's used more for the sawmill industry, or to produce biomass, wood chips. Some years there are more fires, and less raw materials available, so their value increases. And some years it decreases. There are always trade-offs that the logger who comes here has to ensure.
What's this?
What's this?
I think it's a bee.
A racing. A cursă?
It’s probably motorcycles?
No, I think they're cars.
It's an invasion.
Oh! There's a bee there.
It’s gone.
Do you sing in the forest?
Yes.
What do you sing?
I sing my Romanian songs.
Will you teach us a song?
Yes. So, this is a song about the forest.
Ce te legeni.
Let’s just do the pronunciation.
Ce te legeni.
"Why do you sway, forest?" Codrule,in Romania, is a way we personify the forest.
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Fără ploaie, fără vânt
“No rain, no wind.”
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Fără ploaie, fără vânt
Cu crengile la pământ?
Cu crengile la pământ?
Is the forest in Portugal growing?
The fact that there is more woodland doesn’t mean that the forest area is increasing.
Isn't a eucalyptus grove a forest?
If we go back to the concept of forest in the book, it's enough to have a space with trees with over half a hectare, with more than 75% tree cover, and we say it's a forest. But in order for it to be a forest, there has to be a little more complexity, and strata, and species.
So you're saying this isn't really a forest?
This here, I would say it is. What we did was cut down the eucalyptus trees that had been planted many years ago for timber production, and then we planted oak trees, chorleywood, Mediterranean buckthorn. And in a few years, we probably will have a forest there, because we'll have many more species. It won't grow as fast as the eucalyptus did, right? Ten or twenty years later, we looked at it and it seemed like a well-developed forest. But in terms of diversity, it wasn't developed at all.
Spiders.
Thin sticks, dry leaves.
A lot of “caruma”.
Caruma?
Is that what it's called?
What is it?
The pine needles.
A lot of dirt. It's not really dirt, it's...
Dry leaves, but some of these sting a little, these sting a little.
This is part is cooler.
That's a bit of bark from...
From a pine tree, it seems.
But it's true that it's cooler down there.
The caruma... helps to conserve moisture... in the soil.
Leaves that aren’t dry.
And are they good or do they sting?
Ouch!
Yeah, these sting a bit.
Take a look at this.
What's that?
I don't know.
It looks like cotton wool?
Rubbish, that’s rubbish.
Look, I've found a stone.
Are there stones?
Who has gone deeper, who…?
Would you like to be buried?
Only after I’m dead.
I've never thought about it. I think I'd rather be buried than burnt, or what do you call it?
Cremated.
Back to the earth, like this.
There’s a greater communion, right? I'd prefer that.
Buried.
I want to be cremated.
Why?
I watched a lot of films.
I wouldn't mind being buried here.
Exactly. We’re still a part of life.
The spiders would eat me.
How long would a body take to decompose here?
Larvae, caterpillars...
Twenty years?
We need a few good years, don't we?
Twenty years? Or more?
Twenty thousand years!
I think in Romania we have this tradition that you can come out of the tomb after seven years.
That's about right, five or seven.
Normally we only find bones.
I found a dead animal once.
Why?
Near one of those ritual sites. They got a chicken or...
For the ritual part.
Yes. I've also seen a cat near one of those sites. I’m not sure if...
That's wrong.
Yes.
Why isn’t it illegal?
I think it's actually illegal, it's just that there's no enforcement, there’s no way we can find these people every time they... It's like wildfires, right? It's illegal to start a fire, but people go and start fires anyway.
What about in Romania?
We have the custom of making barbecues in the forest.
Barbecues?
Barbecues.
Usually, that’s illegal here. If someone starts a fire, there could be a fine, etc.
What's it like when you see fire in the forest?
I've seen a lot of wildfires, and I've tried to put some out, or at least to keep people safe. It happened up there... It started up there, by the Yellow Stone, and... it consumed about 8 hectares. And there was another one close by, just over this road, which went almost all the way down, to Cascais. That one consumed 200 hectares.
Was that last year, or before?
It happened in the blink of an eye. There were gusts of up to 76 kilometres per hour that day. And it spread so fast...
At breakneck speed.
And when you lose control, people panic.
The heat is unbearable.
When you watch, say, your trees burn down, in some circumstances, you cut ties with the past. In places where these events are recurrent, obviously nobody is going to invest their time, their taste, their care, in something that they know is going to vanish overnight. You just don't know what year it will be, but you know it's going to vanish. So people tend not to return to the forest. Near the head of the fire, first you can see the animals go by, the birds, fleeing the fire. You see thick columns of smoke appearing. There are moments of odd panic, because of spot fires in different places. It’s a chaotic event. There’s a lot of noise, but there’s also silence. People are kind of absorbed. But there are moments of, let’s say, indescribable beauty. Flames that are hundreds of metres high.
That's not beautiful.
Embers spread throughout the land. Cities appear. Then it all ends in an absolutely funereal, black landscape.
Awful.
Where you can see the dead trees, still standing. Property lines, marks reappear. Little details that were hidden by all that vegetation.
Dead animals.
Dead animals. And that dead nature will soon change into its opposite. Because although fires usually occur in the middle of summer, when there’s no humidity, nothing, a new spring ensues. Nature restarts itself. In a few days, everything will turn green again.
Naíma, how do you think human beings turn into trees?
When they're dead, I think... And when they're buried or cremated... You put them in the ground and then...
Yes.
They grow back into trees.
And they grow again.
And when they're still alive, and they eat a seed from an orchard. And then trees grow.
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Ce te legeni, codrule?
Fără ploaie, fără vânt
Și frunzișul mi-l răreșt