The razing of an old-growth forest is not just the destruction of magnificent individual trees — it’s the collapse of an ancient republic whose interspecies covenant of reciprocation and compromise is essential for the survival of Earth as we’ve known it.

| Ferris Jabr, The Social Life of Forests

Jabr also cites Richard Powers, from The Overstory:

There are no individuals. There aren’t even separate species. Everything in the forest is the forest.