Transcript: GIULIANA FURCI on the Divine Time of Fungal Evolution [ENCORE] /289
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Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. Today I’m speaking with Giuliana Furci.
Giuliana Furci And the time of decomposition cannot be measured easily in chronological time, it does take us back to the divine time or the time of each process.
Ayana Young Giuliana Furci is foundress and CEO of the Fungi Foundation, the first international non-profit dedicated to fungi and founded in Chile. She is a Harvard University Associate, Co-Chair of the IUCN Fungal Conservation Committee, and curator of the FFCL Fungarium, among other appointments. Giuliana is the author of both volumes of the “Field Guide to Chilean Fungi”, and co-author of several titles including the 1st State of the Worlds Fungi by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, and the book Fantastic Fungi. She is also the first female mycologist in Chile. For more information about her work visit www.ffungi.org.
Well, Giuliana I am so darn excited to be having this conversation with you, just your knowledge and your spirit and your energy that you bring to this work, into this world, is so beautiful. And just thank you so much for being with us today.
Giuliana Furci Thank you very much for this invitation.
Ayana Young I’d like to begin our conversation by asking you about your research on the ancestral uses of fungi. So often mushrooms and fungi are pitched as being at the forefront of innovation, whether they are being used to create vegan leather, pharmaceuticals, or being incorporated into various biotechnology products...but I’ve heard your allude to the fact that this fixation on innovation obscures our ancestral relationship to fungi. Can you speak to the importance of grounding in our ancestral history amidst this period of intense commodification of fungi and mushrooms?
Giuliana Furci Well, it's such an interesting question and thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. We have as humanity culturally co-evolved with fungi. And wherever we look on Earth, and every civilization that we look into, we see uses of fungi being apparent, either for feeding, healing, clothing, and so much more, weaving, dyeing, and through the Fungi Foundation program called Elders, what we're doing is that we are documenting every known use of fungi, that has been either published in peer reviewed science, general publications, or that have been communicated in oral history. So the ancestral and traditional uses of fungi around the world have been a focus of ours for a very long time. The nature based solutions that fungi hold are overwhelming, and they're not new discoveries. They are ancient uses in this cultural coevolution that we must go back to.
Ayana Young Yeah, I'm totally with you there and thinking about this ancestral relationship, I’m curious to venture into conversation around the right to medicine and how capitalism has corrupted this right...And, this conversation is so complex because on the one hand, we know that medicinal mushrooms are helpful in treating mental illness and are drawn upon as allies for immune, digestion, detox, and stress support - but, on the other hand, many in the radical mycology community have pointed out that this medicine has at once become both a tourist attraction and a targeted resource for large scale companies throughout the world via the branding of medicinal mushrooms as a “top food trend.” So I’d like to ask you what you think it could look like to approach our right to medicine and wellbeing via mushrooms, without giving in to irresponsible capitalism consumption?
Giuliana Furci So almost everybody has access to medicinal mushrooms and medicinal fungi in their neighborhoods, on our trees, wherever you are in the world, on grasslands, mountains, in coastal areas, there are fungi that have the ability to heal you in some manner. We do not need to be buying antibiotics, for example, in a pharmacy, and from a pharmaceutical company, we do not need to be purchasing sunblock, we do not need to be treating ear infections with compounds we don't even know where they originate from. We have, as a species, co-evolved culturally with several species of fungi that have the ability to heal us, in all of our neighborhoods.
So there are cosmopolitan species of fungi that can do for you what companies promote, only they can do for you and we all have the right to know that the compounds that are being sold to us as unique, are actually derived from species that are found in nature, you know, in your backyard many times. So fungi really do come to show us that we can be self-sufficient from a medicinal point of view to a very large extent, through species that we find even on rotting wood. There are species of fungi that have culturally co-evolved with humanity to such an extent that the uses, the known uses in Africa, of certain species are the same known uses in Australasia, and are also the same known uses in South America or North America. So there really has been this cultural coevolution that pharmaceuticals claimed to be discoveries of their own. And it's an insult and is unjust to the fungi.
Ayana Young Kew’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi report announced that in 2019 alone, nearly 2,000 species of fungi were scientifically named for the first time, which is such a small recognition when we think about how it is estimated that the true biodiversity of fungi is somewhere around 1-6 million species...Yet as we find ourselves awakening to fungal diversity, we are also experiencing tremendous ecological loss through logging, monocropping, and forest thinning, all of which puts fungi at risk. Can you share with us the status of fungi and the importance of looking for previously unrecognized fungi, not solely for scientific acquisition, but so that these species, and the ecosystems they are a part of can be protected?
Giuliana Furci Such a pertinent question. So last week, just as an example of what we're talking about, last week, I finally coincided with a fungus that I have been looking for for 20 years, which is a species called Gastroboletus valdivianus, it's an endangered species and endangered under the IUCN criteria in the global fungal Red List and also in the Chilean National Red List, and it's only been collected three times. Once in 1974 and twice in 2006. Now, after searching and searching and searching, and going to those locations and seeing that the native forest where that fungus was found had now been logged, and in some cases replaced with pine plantations. You know, it took me 20 years to find it again. Last week, I was walking, you know, behind a housing development and in a little patch of native forest, and I coincided with Gastroboletus valdivianus for the first time, the fourth known collection of the fungus, eight meters away from pine and eucalypt plantations. And while I was collecting that fungus, I could hear the machinery of another house in development, you know, just a few meters away. So the threat of habitat loss is as real as that, this vivid, you know, account just happening a few days ago.
We are losing species by the minute, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, as well as climate change, nitrogen enrichment, over use of pesticides and fungicides, are making us lose species before we even find them in some cases. And these species not only hold keys to human health, but for example, in the case of Gastroboletus valdivianus, that was found last week, I could not believe the number of insect larvae that were inside the fungus. When I collected the fungus, centipedes came out, you know, there were millipedes, the larvae of flies, there were ants on the fungus, you know enough that, you know, I brought some home to rare those larvae. But what was evident was that the fungus itself was a whole ecosystem, just fundamental food and breeding grounds for a number of insects and when we lose the fungus, those insects lose their habitat, and in some cases, they only grow on these fungi. So the real question is, you know, what is a species and what fungi teach us is that an individual doesn't exist. No species lives alone, and disconnected from others. We are all interconnected with other organisms from other kingdoms. And when we lose one species, we're not losing an individual, we're losing an ecosystem.
Ayana Young Wow that is so deep and beautiful, and scary, you know, a little bit, not a little bit like very, very worrisome. Not that I didn't know that things were connected, but it's a really important reminder for us. And the last I heard, the global market for mushrooms was estimated to be over $40 billion a year, but even separate from this global exchange, we’ve seen the growth of mushroom foraging on a smaller scale as well, and oftentimes this contributes to overharvesting. I wonder if you could speak about the risks of foraging and overharvesting, especially in context to our previous conversation on ancestral usage of mushrooms...
Giuliana Furci Ancestrally most cultures have associated the harvesting or collection of fungi, plants and animals to a sacred activity. It's a sacred activity by which you asked for permission, you thank, you appreciate very deliberately, what we're seeing today is a fever to extract the bounty of a harvest independent of our needs. Ancestrally you only take what you are going to use, you only take with permission what you need to feed your family, to heal your family, to clothe your family. And the commercialization would be through swapping, what we call trueque in Spanish, on a very small scale. What is extremely worrisome today is this notion that you need to take before another does, and therefore you take everything that you see, you never stop to ask permission, you never dwell on the existence of the species you're taking or that you're taking from. We never stop to say thank you, we don't stop to appreciate, and that's driving a very dangerous fever and bounty hunt, of a renewable species, a renewable being, a reproducing being and really driving it to the point of not being able to reproduce or survive.
And this happens, you know, in different ways. It's very important to keep in mind that fungi are organisms that form their own kingdom or queendom, as I like to call them, such as plants and animals are also organisms that form their own kingdoms or queendoms. And when we talk about fungi, we're using a name that includes yeasts, molds, lichens, mushrooms, conks, and other organisms. Just as when we say animals, we're talking about insects, mammals, amphibians, invertebrates, you can separate this large kingdom. When we talk about fungi, and overharvesting, the first step, which is missing from the knowledge and many harvesters is the lifecycle of the organism that we are looking for and that we are taking from, there are some species for example, chaga, that grow on trees, and that are, you know, just one individual per tree. And if you're taking everything you see, you're really not leaving any of that individual to reproduce sexually. There are other species like turkey tail, where also by taking everything you find on a log, you're really stopping that individual from reproducing sexually. And there are other species of edible fungi, for example, chanterelles, or, let's say morales that they're not very closely related. But normally, you're taking these spore producing bodies for food, but the mycelium below has the ability to reproduce asexually and to produce more sexual reproductive organs, you know, bodies. So there's a difference when you're harvesting polypores to when you're harvesting a fleshy mushroom, as to the impact you're having when you take everything you see. That's what I want to say, taking everything you see is never good practice in any area of life, less so with mushroom harvesting. You have to leave not only for others, but also for the animals that depend on them. Also for the plants that depend on them, and some for them to reproduce sexually as well. So really, greed is driving over harvesting, I would say, and it's extremely detrimental to the ecosystems that fungi are, and to anybody who wants to use them, or has to use them.
Ayana Young Thank you so much for sharing that with us and I've mentioned this before on the Podcast, but I used to be a commercial mushroom hunter for a little bit of time. And it was really, my goodness, how do I say this - it was like the Pandora's box of falling in love with the forest because I was able to be in the forest all the time and I was exploring different areas and I was really firsthand experiencing old growth forest versus second growth versus monocrop forest and what logging was, or how logging was impacting not just the visual aesthetic of the forest, not just the ecological damage of the forest, but also the feeling and the spirit of the forest. And I also saw so many groups of commercial harvesters just go in and clean the forest floor of mushrooms. Like really taking everything they saw, so you could just imagine if I was taking most of what I saw, although I you know, even at that time, I didn't know much, but I knew not to do that. But I would come upon places where, for instance, with matsutakes, I could
see all the holes of where they were taken. And so it was a really big eye opener, and I ceased to continue commercial hunting, because I started to understand that this greed was damaging the forest. And it was really a deep realization for me and a little bit sad because I didn't know how to be in right relationship with fungi at the time. But I knew that something wasn't right. And I knew I needed to stop and I just think about all the threats to fungi and how important they are, whether it's over harvesting, or logging and, and one thing I do want to mention too, about logging. For those who don't know this, it's not just that the trees are taken, and the soil is disrupted from the machinery and the dragging and the road construction, and then the sun beating down on the soil drying it out. Of course, just the act of logging is detrimental, but I think what many people don't know is all the poisons that are sprayed on the understory plants, on the trees that are undesirable, on the fungi, it's like being in a cornfield, you know, there's a lot of poisons being used. And so I just felt like I wanted to speak to that with you and-
Giuliana Furci And then it's the replacement with exotic species that bring in whole other communities of organisms that take over, you know, that invade into native ecosystems as well. I mean, here in Chile, as in other countries of the world, in the US, in New Zealand, in Australia, now the beautiful amanita muscaria you know, the fly agaric, muscimol, you know one of the most important fungi for humanity is a ectomycorrhizal species with pine, with birch, with chestnut trees, but it's from the northern hemisphere and when you know logging companies come to the southern hemisphere, clear cut our old growth native temperate rainforest, spray the floor with those poisons and then replace it with exotic pines that come with their own ectomycorrhizal such as amanita, what we're seeing now is that you can go into native temperate rain forests and find amanita muscaria forming symbiosis with native trees. Now, you know, it's a beautiful find, you know, it warms your heart if you don't know what you're seeing. But when you do know, you realize that this invasive mushroom, you know, the fly agaric is taking over the niche of several native mushrooms that should be doing the work for the tree, and that have been displaced or potentially, you know, evicted from their ecosystems. So there are invasive fungi that come as a consequence of logging and forestry industries.
Ayana Young That's a really good point to bring up and I have thought about the invasive species a bit because I see that there are a lot of fungal add ins to say fertilizers or just different products that you can get, whether that's for your personal garden, or that I know that the industry uses in fields or in forest lands. And so I wondered about that specifically, because in some ways, I think, Okay, well, they're adding these fungal elements and potentially, those are helping to rebuild soil, but if they are not native, are they then invasive? And are they then creating problems down the line that we are not aware of at the moment?
Giuliana Furci Well, you know, it's curious, it is such a good, you know, a good query to have, but it's even worse than what some can imagine, because not only are you being sold these exotic fungal additives, but you're also being sold these fungi that will better your soil whilst you add them, but that have been genetically modified to not reproduce. So, it actually makes you depend on buying the commercial version of a, you know of a non reproductive, biological product. So, you know, it gets worse. It's like buying seeds that will never germinate.
Ayana Young Wow, there's so much in this. Because just thinking about the debate between invasive versus native fungi and the implications of certain restoration projects, even where fungi that are not native to the area are rapidly introduced to forest ecosystems and, you know, I wonder when it is a project for restoration, and it's not for commercialized monocropping or cropping of any type, are there any times where introducing a species that is not native can be helpful?
Giuliana Furci The fungi have this fantastic wisdom and it's evolved due to the fact that they are very species specific. So, many times as much as we'd want a fungus to establish for a micro restoration project, it simply can't, because fungi are specific to their substrate. So for example, we can find in one area of the world an amazing fungus that can grow, that's native to the area that does a great job cleaning up and when we want to take it to another region to do the same job, it just doesn't establish because its food source isn't there. So what fungi force us to do with this species specificity is to look for local solutions. So there is little doubt that the best fungal allies to clean up an area of a given place will be in the funga of that place, in the fungal diversity of that place and you wouldn't, you won't really need to look anywhere else, because probably what you find will not establish the hair and do what you think it will. So as a forger, you know that if you're looking for matsutake, you look for the matsutake habitat. If you're looking for morels, you look for the morel habitat. It's not that these species can occur just anywhere. They're very specific in where they live. And the same for restoration. If you're, you know, you need a species that is capable of establishing and thriving in the habitat you want to clean up.
Ayana Young Yeah, that makes so much sense and if you do want to introduce, or if projects are saying that they are introducing native species back into the space that's been damaged, is there a protocol in which to harvest and implement these species back into the ecosystem? Like is there a way that is, is there a way for it to be done in right relationship? Or are there ways that it's done that you don't agree with?
Giuliana Furci So pathogenic fungi exist all over the world, and they are native to several systems. Now, the species thrive when there is an imbalance. So if a place has been, for example, logged, and the floor is full of branches, leaves, you know, even your smaller tree trunks, and just everything that has been left behind, you will see certain species become predominant in that landscape. And it's not only the species that are saprobic, they are recycling the decomposing plant matter that is left behind after that impact. So that's, you know, one way to look at the abundance of a species in a place is through the lens of an imbalance when you have contamination with chemical soils that are killing the plant matter and it's hard for the fungi to establish to do their job of decomposing to enable recomposition, sometimes we need to help the species establish there, we need to put them back into that system so that they can decompose the plant matter.
We normally do that with either native species of wood decomposers or known “aggressive” species of fungi whose mycelium quickly establishes and who’s mycelium can tolerate the chemicals that are found there. By excellence, one of the most powerful mycelial powers is held in the oyster mushroom in Pleurotus ostreatus, and you can introduce it to certain areas and it will establish up to a point where it has something to eat, because it's wood dwelling and a wood decompose, once that wood has been decomposed, the fungus will not thrive as much. However, it will sporulate and it will travel, it will move around and establish in other areas and could potentially become a pathogen in healthy areas close to where you're cleaning up. So, you know, it's a duality that many face and in order to really overcome that duality and make a decision, it's important to have a thorough knowledge of the native species that might be able to do that same thing that the Pleurotus is doing, but whose detrimental impact would be less because the ecosystems and habitats are used to their presence. So it's not an easy answer. There's a lot to consider.
Ayana Young Well, thank you so much for considering with me for a bit of time on this very complex topic that I think about all the time with my work in conservation and restoration of forest lands, and I really appreciate working through them a bit with you.
Giuliana Furci I have a very, you know, emblematic case of the same dilemma. So Tierra del Fuego is a large island shared, politically/modernally, shared by Argentina and Chile, and is the southern tip of the continent of the America’s, bridging towards Antarctica. And in Tierra del Fuego, there was an ecological genocide going on, thanks to the introduction of beavers. Many years ago, a gentleman decided he was going to farm beavers for the pelt industry, so for their skins, and when his business didn't go well, he decided to free them. What we have today is an invasion that is unprecedented. I mean, it's just heartbreaking to see these are old growth, sub-Antarctic forests, you know, trees that can live up to 800-1000 years old, suffering from basically being drowned because of the beaver dams that these animals build and they have no predator here. So nobody caps the beaver population naturally, because it's an invasive species. So I was working a few years ago, measuring what was happening with fungi there, with richness and abundance of species, it was apparent that where the beaver dams are, the fungal diversity drops drastically, like it changes from having 100 species in five square meters to one species in five square meters, but the abundance of those species is enormous and because the beavers eat the bark of the trees and they use a lot of that of that material to build their dams, no fungus was establishing to be able to decompose the tree trunks so that that energy would be able to recompose into the into the system.
And so we were looking at different fungal species that were capable of living on these hardwoods that had no no bark on them and, you know, really the realization was, we need to find the native species that can do that. There are exotic species that can do it and they could do that today, but it means introducing a species of fungus. Whereas we need the time to find what native fungus can do this in a more ecologically just way. So when faced with that duality, my choice and my professional choice to the people who were asking me those questions was do not introduce a new species here, that could then, you know, just take over niches that other native species hold. But rather, let's take the time we need to find that native species that can establish on these barkless tree trunks.
Ayana Young Wow. So interesting, so much to take in and-
Giuliana Furci And I think ultimately it takes us back and forward and present to how we relate to time. The ancient Greeks would measure time in two ways, the kairos and the chronos, being, you know, chronological time that we have adopted with seconds, minutes, you know, hours, weeks, years, and then kairos, which is the divine time or the natural time of a process, which is different, and is not comparable to kronos, to the chronological time. And, you know, the time of each process is to be respected. And the time of decomposition cannot be measured easily in chronological time, it does take us back to the divine time on a time of each process
Ayana Young That is so beautiful and so deep to hear that and that just took me to so many places in my mind. So thank you for bringing that up. Because I think that's something that's often overlooked, especially since we live in a culture that is, in so many ways, pressured by instant gratification, and the need to see change and movement, and results in solutions in a very quick time frame that doesn't actually make sense most of the time, right? And this kind of is making me think about that, alongside others, you’ve pointed out the critical role that the fungi queendom can play in response to biodiversity loss and climate change, and this reminds me of these ancient ecosystems and how fungal diversity played a role in them, shaping evolutionary history - which is to say that I’m thinking about fungi’s relationship with the Earth outside of our use of fungi. How can fungi assist with ecological regeneration for the sake of the planet and our more than human kin? If left alone especially?
Giuliana Furci Well, you can't have any regeneration without fungi. It is that simple. I mean, it's sort of, you know, more basal. Nothing can recompose without fungi that are decomposing. Energy is not lost, energy is transformed, and the organisms that transform energy are the fungi. It's impossible to look at regeneration without looking at decomposition and decomposition doesn't exist without fungi. It's really very, I mean, it sounds very simple. And what I'm going to say is, it's very simple. But it really is as simple as that we cannot heal our planet without fungi. No organism in a terrestrial habitat can live without the fungi, not not one of them. Plants can not live outside of water without the fungi that are in or on its roots. And, you know, when life emerged from an aquatic ecosystem onto terrestrial landscapes, the only reason that the first life forms were established were because of teaming up in a symbiosis with fungi. So once again, what fungi is saying is that an individual doesn't exist. Every time we use the word ecosystem, we're talking about fungi. Every time we talk about rewilding, we're talking about fungi. And, you know, in the eyes of a mycologist, you know, we see a tree as a photosynthetic symbol of a fungus or many fungi. We don't see it the other way around. It all has to do with your point of view. Some people say, Oh, you know, ectomycorrhizal fungi allow plants to live. Well, no is that plant that's allowing the fungus to live. There's a very fundamental and basal acknowledgement that needs to be made tangible in language in legislation. I'm in policy in general that acknowledges that fungi are the firmament of all terrestrial ecosystems, every single one of them.
Ayana Young Well, that's a perfect transition to my next question, which is that Chile became the first country in the world to include fungi in environmental legislation, and I understand your organization Fungi Foundation played a huge role in pushing for this protection. Can you share with us the importance of these legal protections and how this process unfurled?
Giuliana Furci Yeah, it was definitely our doing in triggering it. So this was over a decade ago, when Chile opened up its environmental legislation, it's a constitutional law that regulates over all the environment. And it was opened up for different reasons, there were articles that were under revision and it presented an opportunity to propose or to, you know, to work around the contents of that legislation. And we saw the opportunity to work together to collaborate with a network of organizations to push for Chile to adopt a recommendation made by IUCN, and by convention on biodiversity to include fungi in its conservation planning and biodiversity plans. So because Chile had had such a bad grade in environmental issues, we went to the Ministry of the Environment and presented them with an opportunity to become the champions of the inclusion of this kingdom in its legislation. And we proved to them that it wasn't expensive to do and that, really, if we were talking about an ecosystemic approach to nature, this was the only way to do it. And after two years of working to get both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and the ministries to understand this issue, and that, you know, in a very strategic way, the law was finally passed with the inclusion of fungi in two paragraphs of the of one article of this legislation, this bill, where it establishes that the environmental impact assessment system must now also look at the impact of fungi when given an environmental permit, that fungi need to be included in the species inventory of the country, and that public information systems for fungi needed to be put in place through regulation.
What that really translated into was that if you are applying for a permit to build a road, to build a dam, to do a housing development, you not only have to assess the impact of your project on fauna and flora, but also on the funga. The funga is the fungal diversity of a given place and we're the only country in the world where the impact on fungi is assessed prior to getting a permit to impact that ecosystem or that territory and you know, it's funny that we're talking today, nothing is a coincidence but I was mentioning Gastroboletus valdivianus, which is this species that I finally coincided with after 20 years of trying to coincide with this endangered species of fungus that, today there was a news piece that was published around the discovery of this species that hadn't been seen for 15 years and I immediately got an email from the regional Environment Minister of the region where I found the fungus saying, “This is super important to us, we do not want housing developments to go on in the habitat where this fungus was found.” So really, it's legislation that gives us a conservation tool to protect ecosystems, vulnerable ecosystems, old ecosystems, unique ecosystems, from the hands of men and women. And it's proving to be quite effective.
Going back to what you asked about these ancient ecosystems, it's important to keep in mind that there are species of fungi that only grow on trees that are older than 400 years old. I mean, fungi is so species specific, that even you know, the age of the tree is fundamental to the existence to the reproduction of a fungal species. So, you know, loggers want log trees that are extremely old, because they're all rotten inside, well, what is that that's a fungus that's living there, a fungus that doesn't live on younger trees, sometimes, you know, and they the old trees, the must be cut to tree away for medium sized trees, they just discarded, you know, 1000s of years, this ancient being with its ancient beings inside and you know, included or just discarded to get to, you know, this this bounty of you know, of utilitarian wood that actually probably isn't even as useful as they think. What I mean is that there are fungal reasons to protect ancient trees and another very important project of the Fungi Foundation in our conservation program, is the development of easy access conservation tools based on fungi that can give you leverage to protect ancient ecosystems.
Ayana Young It's so brilliant what you're doing and all the folks you work with, to have built out this tool, or using this tool for conservation. And I'm just really blown away right now and I'm really grateful that this is a tool that can be used and I'm hoping that folks in other places get inspired by what you're doing down in Chile, and try to understand how to bring that to more countries and more places. So that development doesn't completely destroy these ecosystems that we know is extremely challenging, if not sometimes impossible, to support them to return to what they were before the destruction came for them.
Giuliana Furci It's absolutely impossible. I mean, you cannot compensate for the age of a tree. And you know in the Pacific Northwest, and then, you know, the Pacific coast of Canada, my dear friend and brother Paul Stamets he, he was one of the first people who used the fungal leverage to protect old forests, he discovered, you know, the Fomitopsis officinalis, the agarikon, the agarikon fungus has very powerful antiviral compounds. Now, those fungi only grow on ancient trees and he made it a matter of national defense in the U.S. to protect the forest, because in those old trees grew an old fungus that had antivirals found nowhere else in nature. So, you know, this is something that the future of old forests, in my view, has a chance, looking at the fungal reasons to protect them. And I hope that goes more mainstream.
Ayana Young I do too. And yeah, I just want to jump back to the fungal diseases for a moment and I'd also like to ask about the recent increase in fungal diseases and I know you touched on this, but specifically, how is climate change contributing to the rise of fungal pathogens that target crops or other species and which fungal diseases post the greatest threat to global or even local ecosystems?
Giuliana Furci I think there are two ways of looking at this. I mean, by looking at the proliferation of a fungal species that might be detrimental to a plant or an animal, it doesn't mean that the fungus is causing that detriment. Fungi, as are plants and animals, are opportunistic organisms, and where there is an imbalance, they will thrive. Now, there are two ways of looking at that thrive. One is that they are causing the problem and another is that they're “solving” a problem, because if through climate change, several plants are dying, what the fungi is doing there is decomposing to enable recomposition. In some cases, they're not just, you know, this intelligent being that's out to kill all the trees, no, they are being opportunistic at this available energy that is becoming available because of a larger imbalance in the system. So I'm always very careful when talking about fungal pathogens, because, in my view, most of the cases are fungi that are making the most of a larger imbalance that they have not caused.
It's like when you look at huitlacoche and corn, right? It's incredible that most of the countries in the world are spraying their corn and maize to get rid of pathogens, which is essentially an edible species that has a lot of nutrition. So it's sort of, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? You know, what came first? Was it this beautiful, pristine, you know, unspotted, cob, you know, with corn, or is it this symbiotic organism with the fungus that can also feed you, as well as the corn or no, with a balanced cycle? I think there's a misconception of what health is in an ecosystem. Health is not necessarily everybody living happily forever after, health has imperfections in an ecosystem, it decomposition, it has transitioning from one life form to another. Fungi are the ones that normally do that and they are stigmatized for doing so. But in a healthy ecosystem, there is abundant decomposition. You know, it's not it's not zero decomposition. It's important to let things rot. Yeah.
Ayana Young Well, thank you for just grounding us in that reality. And, yeah, I would like to transition now our conversation to discuss the patriarchal undertones of the field of mycology. And so, you know, blatantly speaking, the mycological world or at least in the so called West, is dominated by a lot of older white men and there's a lot of ego there as well. I wonder if you could share your experiences working in the field, as well as the importance of dismantling the patriarchal eurocentric structure. So that mycology may be more welcoming to a more diverse audience.
Giuliana Furci Yeah, it's such a good topic. You know, I don't know if I'm laughing out of nerve, or just you know, how ridiculous it really is, in many places. I think that I mean, the origin of this comes from, you know, the late 17th century, you know, European takeover of, you know, “professions” where, paganism was driven out, you know, the church overtook, you know, the natural sciences, you know, anybody who practice medicine outside of the accepted establishment or male was a witch and had to be burned. That has really lived on fiercely in the natural sciences. It was only really in the early 19th century that some females in this “Western” world were even allowed to go to secondary school and it was really in just the late 19th century where females were allowed to go to university and work in research. So it's a dramatic scenario of a whole science that has either been dominated by males, or where there's been domination by female researchers, but that have never been acknowledged, because they're women, and therefore, men have been acknowledged for their work and that’s not very hard to find. You know Fanny Hesse who was a brilliant microbiologist, she invented the agar gel, you know, to be able to cultivate microorganisms. But it was her boss who took the credit for it, because she was just this woman working in the lab, she wasn't anybody to be attributed with that discovery.
And today, thankfully, less and less we're seeing this happen, although studying in a university is still quite an elite opportunity. And it has to be said, I mean, you still need quite a lot of money to be able to go to university still, in most countries of the world. There’s been only very recently a drive for more inclusion in, in access to, to undergraduate and graduate studies. There's a difference in different regions, while in South America, for example, there are many, many female mycologists, and there are many generations of women working in mycology. But what's traditionally happened is that women have been excluded from field activity and left more in the lab. So women because they can do the delicate job of slicing specimens or, you know, because they need to be taken care either of their parents, or their children, or their husband, so they need to, you know, have like a nine to five job and field mycology, you know, treacherous dirty job where you're working for, you know, 20 hours a day, and walking for weeks, was deemed as unfit for a woman, not elegant at all, dangerous, and taking a woman to neglect her family.
So that was, you know, that's only just starting to change. When I started working in field mycology 23 years ago, I remember people saying, “Oh, and, you know, how do you do it? You know, where do you get changed in the field?” And be looking at them thinking, Is this a joke? Then questions when I was married, and a mother, “Who looks after your son while you're out in the field?” I wonder if they asked my husband who is looking after his son when he's working? You know? No way. I mean, this was just a very gender biased question. Or, you know, who is staying at home looking after your house when you're, you know, in the field for months? Well, you know, nobody - I live with somebody else. And he can do that too. But all this was unthinkable even 20 years ago. I got so many insinuations that I was neglecting my son, because I was in the field for two weeks straight. I was even told by several people to consider the damage that would bring to my boy, with his mom not being around every year in full. I mean, it gets to that level, that’s why I laugh because you either laugh or you cry or even get really angry.
But it's still like that, there's still this vision that the woman has full responsibility of the family, that the field and the forest is not a place that's apt for decent women to be spending full time and it's just infuriating. Sorry. Yeah, I could rant on about that. Yeah, but now you know, more and more there's a global movement of inclusiveness, gender inclusiveness, racial inclusiveness, thankfully, thankfully, that's all I can say.
I unfortunately got to live through a lot of heavy unfair insinuations about, of being a mother and, and working in the field. And it got to the point where, even when I met Jane Goodall and we were talking about being a field scientist and having a small child, and she said to me “Don't stop, you are with mushrooms where I was with the chimps, you know, we do it with the children, don't stop.” And I listen to her. And she would even have to put her son in a cage so the chimps wouldn’t harm him, you know, I haven't had to cage my son, but I have had to leave him sometimes for, you know, five weeks to go and explore an area. I don't think that that deems us as being bad mothers, at all.
Ayana Young Well, thank you so much for sharing your personal experience with this, and I really hear you, I definitely have gotten some words around my lifestyle and that I've chosen to be in the forest and just the way that I have chosen to spend my time, and that there's definitely segments of this dominant culture that really looks down upon that sends a lot of guilt trips, my way makes me feel like I'm making the wrong decisions, that it's not worthy, it's not the most valuable, it's not what I should be doing. I'm gonna waste my life in the forest, you know, like all sorts of stuff, it's strange, it's really, it's strange, clearly, it's ingrained in the people who are telling us these things and telling so many folks that how they're choosing to be in deep relationship with the land, it's undesirable, I guess. And for me, it almost made me feel like I'm an undesirable woman. And it's just so strange. I'm like, wow, this is really odd that I am being made to feel that my womanhood is in question, because I've chosen to be in the woods with a lifestyle that isn't what is conventional? And so I just wanted to say that, to share with you in that frustration, and also, what are we to do, but say, well, that's your opinion. But you know, the mushrooms are calling.
Giuliana Furci Oh and if they only knew how amazing life is. I chuckle inside most of the time, I mean, my mother was a political prisoner here for the coup in Chile, she was, you know, imprisoned and tortured for a year, and then in exile and a refugee and I have an upbringing, enough to be able to chuckle inside and say, you know, your convictions are your convictions, and there's nothing more valuable to any individual than respectfully having a conviction and my mother always taught me that, you know, stick to guns and you don't have to please everybody. And there is really, there are only very few counted times where it's worth even explaining. I just take that and she would say, take it with a pinch of salt. Just let them say what they want to say. You know, it's been the best, the best teaching.
Ayana Young Yeah, yeah and I’m just thinking about how I know that so many of our listeners have been, well will be touched by this conversation and have been touched by fungi’s demonstration of interspecies companionship, their brilliant response to surrounding contamination, or simply the aesthetic wonder of coming across wild mushrooms...As we come to a close, I wonder if you could share some of the lessons fungi have taught you about our responsibility to one another and the Earth as we unmap the harmful structures of our world?
Giuliana Furci One of the most powerful lessons I've learned from fungi is that death doesn’t exist. The destruction of a physical life form is not the end of the energy and that a soul’s passing is not an end. The continuum - fungi have taught me that there is a continuum that transcends most existences and that's, I think one of the biggest lessons, apart from the lesson that many are only just learning that everything is connected and really, an individual doesn't exist. I think that concept of death being a beginning and not an end, and that decomposition for recomposition, really recomposition has to do with regeneration, has really led me to believe that we have to let things rot and that rot and mold, or the new rock and roll, I say it, but it's true, you know, it's rot and mold, we have to let things rot. The end of something is not a finale. It's just the beginning and I think that can bring a lot of peace with the system that we're living in but there is a continuum that will prevail, that energy will be transformed and that this life form is not the only one, and that when it finishes that doesn’t mean that it is the end.
Ayana Young That was so beautiful and poetic, and really moved me and I think remembering about the power of decomposition and death and rebirth is so important even in the day to day of life and psychological challenges of living in this time, to remember the cadence of life and that nothing is actually stagnant or sterile for that matter, and that is so important for me to tap into right now. So thank you for bringing that up.
Giuliana Furci Oh you’re welcome and I think it’s important for us to remember that health is not a spotless system. A healthy system is not a spotless system, in a healthy ecosystem things will be rotting, trees will be falling, but things happen in a natural ecosystem. In a pristine ecosystem you will be walking upon layers and layers of dead plant matter. In a healthy ecosystem an animal will die on the forest floor and become an ecosystem in itself. The fact that you find a dead bird in a forest does not mean that it is an unhealthy forest, it is important to let things rot - it is a part of health.
Ayana Young Yes, absolutely, this has been such an incredible conversation and I wish that it would go on for hours, so I’m already planning on how to speak again on a part two because I don’t want it to end and I feel like there is so much to uncover together and to learn from you and I’m so grateful for your time with us today, but also the time you've put into the study of fungi, and the Earth, and relationships and also finding ways and creating tools to protect the land, it’s so beautiful and before we close please let listeners know how they can connect with you and Fungi Foundation further.
Giuliana Furci Okay, thank you very much and I also want to thank Nat Kelley for connecting us. Nat is an amazing weaver and interconnector, but she weaves so elegantly so thank you to Nat. You can find the Fungi Foundation through fungi.org and also on social media, Instagram @fungifoundation, and we are always available for anybody who has any inquiry in almost any language.
Francesca Glaspell Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast. The music you heard today was by Roma Ransom, Rajna Swaminathan, and Julio Kintu. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young, Erica Ekrem, and Francesca Glaspell with special research assistance by Julia Jackson.