(atmospheric guitar plays as birds chirp) A forest is a forest because of everything that's in the forest.

It's not just a few species of trees, It is all the species of trees.

In addition to all the species of fungus that help to decompose things and get things back into the soil.

It's all the species of birds that get to spread the seeds and and maintain the populations of certain organisms.

What if I told you there was a time machine in your own backyard?

You just had to walk through a gate.

Wesselman Woods - When you walk through here, you are walking through a forest and getting a glimpse of what Indiana looked like before pre-colonial settlement.

Indiana was originally all forest, all old growth forest.

Before our state was a state.

It was about 20 million acres of undisturbed forest, and many native groups lived on and stewarded these lands long before settlers removed them and started developing the land for new purposes.

It's hard to imagine when you drive from Indianapolis to Evansville and you drive past all of those fields and, you know, and that's what they were going for.

They were trying to feed people.

So they had to get rid of the trees so they could grow corn and soybeans But today.

Less than 2000 of that 20 million acres of old growth forest that is forests older than 150 years remain.

But there's also a distinction between an old growth forest and an ancient forest.

Ancient forests are those that have never been cut.

And in Indiana, we only have three ancient forests.

Wesselman Woods is the very best of those ancient forests because it's at least twice as big as any of those other ancient forests in Indiana.

A tiny pocket of the past embedded in the heart of the city.

Evansville grew up with this forest.

But that's not all that makes it special.

There's something about diversity that happens in those ancient forests.

So Wesselman Woods, has over 40 different tree species in this 200 acres that is ancient forest.

When I was spending time in England, I realized they have 40 species across all of England.

Our 200 acres.

Has the tree diversity of England.

Old growth forests are home to countless organisms, more than a secondary growth forest.

And it's hard not to appreciate a forest like this.

Like the remaining old growth forests across Indiana that are habitats for some species that are reliant on old growth forest for their survival.

And in this forest, the dead played just as important of a role as the living.

Another thing that's great about these old growth forests is they've had this long, 200, 300-year history of trees falling.

So we usually think of a forest as a place that has a lot of life.

But one of the things that really brings life to a forest are dead trees.

A dead standing tree can recruit four different kinds of woodpeckers to it.

And then the trees, when they fall and they make a tip, on the root side, there's a place where standing water can collect.

And that can be a place where salamanders and other amphibians use.

those dead trees provide all sorts of opportunities for animals.

This entanglement between life and death has led to centuries of relationships being built between the many residents of Wesselman Woods there is a presence of networks in forests like these that is, unlike networks in secondary forests.

And so the species present in this forest have had decades and centuries and possibly even thousands of years to develop these unique relationships with their neighbors, with other species in this forest.

But there's also that ecosystem service benefit we get from biodiversity.

As you increase diversity that allows for that ability to have the community adapt and respond to changing environments.

And so diverse habitats usually are more resilient to environmental change, whereas a simple habitat is going to be much more susceptible to disturbance.

That's a good thing because I don't know if you've heard, but things are changing out there and it's not all looking great.

But these trees are tough and they have ways of fighting back.

Plants need carbon to grow, and when we have excess carbon in the atmosphere, like right now with climate change, what these old growth forests do is that they are taking in that carbon and storing it, collecting it, within their trunks, within the leaves, within their roots, within the soil.

so old growth forests act as a carbon sink, as carbon storage.

for the ecosystem.

some old trees will take up more carbon the older they get.

So that the rate of the carbon uptake is higher when they're very old compared to when they're a seedling.

And so old forests like this are incredibly important in the, in the climate crisis.

And in a time where more and more of the world's forests are disappearing.

Wesselman is growing.

To expand any urban forest is rare.

To expand an urban old-growth forest is even rarer.

We are so excited to get this acreage and I think it'll be a first for the United States - Reforesting this 90 acres with old growth material.

knowing that these trees are 200, 300 and, you know, possibly older than that.

these trees have withstood a lot.

I mean, droughts, a lot of rain, heat, winters, what have you.

I mean, that is a lot of time for these trees to become resilient.

And those genetics are going to be so important when we're thinking about climate change impacts to this area.

It will be a very long time before these trees are even teenagers, let alone adults, longer than most of us have on this earth.

But that's okay.

The great thing about this time machine is that it goes backwards and forwards, allowing you to see Indiana as it was and as it could be again.

So for now.

Walk in the forest.

Detach from technology and just, observe.

(Music fades out and we hear the sounds of the forest) Use all five senses.

Use your full range of vision.

Enjoy the smells of the forest and listen to the birds and insects.

Feel the bark.

If there are, you know, berries that, you KNOW, are blueberries or something, taste them.

Right.

I don't encourage people to eat things that they see, but...

It's developing patience and seeing a little bit more beauty where people don't tend to find beauty, You know, we always think of a or big old forest as, as the pinnacle of, of beauty.

Or at least that's what I do.

and starting to realize that, you know, there is beauty, there is hope in, two year old seedling, that will someday be as big and and old as these trees we have here.

Find more stories at wfyi.org/AcrossIndiana