Real Life: How ecologist Robert Vennell finds ‘divine revelation’ in mould and moss

“I think you can get some sense of divine revelation… by slowing down and looking at some of these things in the bush,” says Robert Vennell. Photo / Michael Craig.

Ecologist Robert Vennell really hopes his new book doesn’t feel too much like reading a biology textbook.

The Aucklander, who made a name for himself by eating his way through Aotearoa’s bush and writing about it, has this month released a new book called The Forgotten Forest.

It’s an exploration of history, science, and spirituality in search of unappreciated species of moulds, fungi, mosses and the like. The content is nerdy, but Vennell wanted reading it to feel like an adventure, rather than an academic resource.

“I really wanted to avoid it seeming like a kind of biology textbook describing what these species were, and so the book is styled as a storybook,” he told Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night.

“It’s a venture into the bush. And as you hike up the mountains and down the valleys, you’re encountering these weird and wonderful species.”

The book has come out amid a resurgence of interest in the medicinal benefits of species that have been utilised by tangata whenua over the centuries but ‘forgotten’ in the years since.

“Oftentimes, a lot of the research is validating some of the rongo [experiences] and some of the traditional medicinal uses by Māori,” he told Cowan.

“For me, writing this book was a journey of discovery. I didn’t know too much about these things before I started… it was just a total revelation that these things are at the forefront of a lot of new scientific discoveries.”

“We train ourselves to look for the big obvious things in the bush – the trees, the plants, the birds. And if you’ve not got your eye out for these other species, it just looks like a green blur.

“But once you can start picking them out, some of these species are easily the most fascinating on the planet.”

Vennell has always had a strong appreciation for the natural world, which now informs his vocation as someone who writes about ecology for a living and works as a natural science curator at Auckland War Memorial Museum – Tamaki Paenga Hira.

Growing up on north Auckland’s Whangaparāoa Peninsula, he spent his early years swimming, jumping off rocks into water, exploring the bush and honing his survival skills.

Vennell told Cowan those experiences implanted a “deep reverence” for nature in him, which is evidenced by the way he writes about some of these species of mosses and liver warts in The Forgotten Forest.

“I talk in the book about how looking at some of these species and really honing in on these tiny features of colour and shape and texture has a sort of meditative quality to it.

“I think you can get some sense of divine revelation… by slowing down and looking at some of these things in the bush. It is a very peaceful, relaxing experience.”

Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB.