Let me introduce to you the emperor,
45 meters high and a circumference of 4 meters.
Quite impressive, isn't it?
It is 250 years old.
This means that this pine tree was born before the French Revolution.
It was 35 years old when Beethoven composed the ''Ode to Joy,''
100 years old during the Universal Exhibition in Paris,
200 years old
when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written.
It overlooks the 250 acre of forest that I manage.
Think for a moment ...
Since its seed sprouted, it has experienced one thousand seasons,
250 times the spring mildness,
then the heat and the summer drought.
It has seen its friends, the beech trees, lose their leaves 250 times,
as well as the winter's harshness, the wind, the cold, the snow.
In fact, in my work as forest manager,
my relationship with time is a bit different than the majority of you.
When I cut a 200-year-old tree
I imagine the forest aisle, the clearing that it will create,
and the seeds that will then sprout, grow, evolve, and become trees.
I visualize my action
at the level of a tree and the forest area,
but above all, I am led to exercise my foresight.
Once they become trees, what makes those seeds form the future forest ?
I anticipate my interventions in a management plan,
or a "life plan" if you prefer,
for one year, five years, thirty years ...
a hundred years.
My perspective is the century.
What does this teach me?
Well, it is first humility, intellectual honesty.
I don't cheat with time.
I can't pull the tree to make it grow faster.
I have to work with an exiting forest
that Nature and foresters have shaped centuries before I came.
My task is to continue this work for the centuries to come
while providing people with the wood they need.
And when I make choices, my responsibility is to respect the history of each forest.
What will be useful to it?
What could galvanize its collective strength?
Because a forest is primarily a society.
It's a tree and another tree and another tree,
just like drops of water add up to make streams, rivers,
and oceans.
Each tree gives what it can and takes what it needs,
no more no less.
The trees' stillness makes us believe that they are inactive,
but they are permanently active.
They extend their leaves, their branches, their crowns
towards the light at all times.
They capture the smallest photon, the smallest drop of water
in order to develop, to strengthen their roots and their trunk.
Each tree is beneficial in its own way.
One brings shade,
another a shield from the wind.
This one gives its leaves to produce humus.
That one spreads its roots to capture water deep below.
All of them produce oxygen,
clean up the air,
purify the water, fix the ground, regulate the climate,
produce fruits and wood,
and participate in the balance of the forest and the world.
Each one gives what it can, but one tree does not constitute a forest.
It is part of the stand.
It brings its will, its vital impulse.
In my daily work,
I have noticed that the forest's strength is in symbiosis,
an intimate and lasting association between individual trees,
a community of interest if you prefer.
I could see how trees work in synergy.
Young beeches grow under the cover of old pines,
and young pines grow under the cover of old beeches.
However, there are also competitive relationships and rivalry at an early age
to find a place as a dominant or as a dominated in adulthood
among the stand.
Then these relationships slowly become an interaction and cooperation phenomena.
At that point, the dominants protect the dominated,
and the dominated ensure the stand's stability against the wind.
Personaly, I have noticed that the forest does not build its strength
on uniformity but on diversity.
So based on one-century perspective,
what am I going to do to favour this symbiosis?
Here, I've made a clearing which light enables seeds to sprout.
Elsewhere, I've made a clearing
that has strengthened the trunk of the trees against the wind.
Somewhere else, I selected some trees to produce timber.
It may seem surprising, but when you cut a tree,
the overall potential of the forest is increased.
With each decision, I chose which tree stays and which one falls.
This obliges me to step away before I take them.
I must constantly sharpen my sense of observation,
look at the forest in its entirety,
and learn its functioning.
The forest is my school of life.
It helped me and is still helping me to better understand the world
and even myself sometimes.
Personally, what I see in it is like various paths of human life.
Some seeds have grown far from their parents.
They are light.
Winds and birds have carried them far away.
They are frugal, and they are content with low quality soil
to grow and create some shade for their offspring
and form a new community.
Other seeds, much heavier,
fall at the feet of their parents and grow in their fold,
protected but at the same time under a guardianship
that obliges them to make their way between parental branches
in order to find light.
When I look at the size of a seed,
and see that with just some earth, water and light
it produces this,
for me it's magical, It's fascinating!
We are just like these seeds.
We have a huge potential in ourselves.
And they show us that there's little needed to make great things,
one goal - capturing the light -
and the enthusiasm to go further and higher every day,
for a thousand seasons.
So what about me, what is my goal?
What is my plan for life?
What will make my deeds beneficial to others,
to our future and to our children's future?
Before that, life was for me about finding the right balance
between enjoyment and work.
They were two opposite elements.
Enjoyment means burning the candle at both ends, having fun ...
It's the passion for life.
Work on the other hand is tedious, laborious and not very exciting.
The tree showed me a third path: building.
I can develop my potential and feel fulfilled
when I try to accomplish, even partially, a work bigger than myself
that I will not see completed in my lifetime.
Each day, I know that what I do brings me excitement
because it involves something both natural and immense.
Look at the trees!
Let yourself be carried by their majesty,
by this feeling of eternity that they spread,
this kind of calm and resolute energy.
Look at their diversity and their complementarity.
Now me and you,
just like the emperor and his companions, the beeches,
what are we building?
What is our goal, our "plan for life" so to speak?
Using a century as perspective,
let's be trees!
And together, let's be a forest!
Thank you.
(Applause)