Here is what ChatGPT gave me as an answer (just a part of it and it seems about right on general science posted and known):
Initial regrowth of grasses, shrubs, and young trees: 5–10 years
Formation of a young forest with canopy closure: 20–50 years
Development of mature forest characteristics: 50–150 years.
True old-growth forest with full biodiversity: 200–500+ years
After Severe Degradation (e.g., Mining or Urbanization): Recovery may take hundreds or thousands of years due to the need to rebuild soil and reintroduce biodiversity.
The year of 2025 for me is also a celebration of 10 years of Reinvention Academy and partnering, learning with Dr. Nadya Zhexembayeva. I have been part of this journey in so many ways and it is very interesting to reflect and evolve.
My sense making happens so much easier when I am in the forest. So I got my symbolic celebratory image of receiving the very first certificate in the world back then, on my volcanic mountain Smrekovec.
Our nature, our thinking as humans has been significantly damaged in the past 300 years with the mechanistic thinking, for the last 80 or so years with the thought that we can control, manage and predict Life with almost 100% certainty. With the dangerous thought that we can stay in our cocoon for much longer than needed, before becoming a new butterfly.
I counted that in my past 10 years of using, talking, sharing this frameworks, hosting different conversations I have shared reinvention contents with about 10.000 people. And the total of our reinvention community is over 1 million!!!
I feel we only just begun and that we overcame the painful repetition of why that can bring value to anyone, to see that the forests are burned to the ground.
We are entering a new wave of the how to reinvent, an era of enriching the soil where something can grow, again.
Patience on repetition, reflection, getting out of our known environments, circles of people, conversations, noticing the details that are not said, are the essential elements of the compost we are creating.
And that is grounds for a forest we can grow sooner.
Yes, this is a very metaphorical, maybe a poetic post, but it’s very real.
As real as all the challenges we, our teams, our organisations are facing for the next 10 years. As real as the nearest tree you can touch.
For the love of forests in our minds and beyond.
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