NEWS & VIEWS • MARCH 2026 27 external stimuli. I like to argue this point given my experiences in dealing with bee hives and ant formicariums. It is my contention that queen bees and ants display more than adequate evidence of nurture and care to warrant a re-look at the invertebrate theory. Just how far do the attributes stretch through the vertebrate species? Anybody who has owned a dog will know that dogs are definitely sentient creatures and you can extrapolate that to birds and any number of domestic animals. In the realm of wild animals, the late Jane Goodall proved countless times the sapience of chimps whilst other naturalists the world over regale countless stories of sentient animal encounters. With all this said, one might contend that sentience and sapience are both very real. All living creatures demonstrate these attributes in a lessor or greater manner. OK – so I’m a forester so don’t get me started on the attributes of trees. Just imagine the angst of the poor chainsaw operator should all the neighbouring trees begin to growl as he stealthily approaches his target! In any event, back to the reality of sentience and sapience. What is it that prevents humans from acknowledging and applying the attribute of sentience? Why do we not accept that deep within our core there lurks a considerable dose of sapience? We actually do have the ability to act rationally, use knowledge and experience to make sound judgments, and engage in complex, abstract thought, and yet we don’t – or at least not effectively! We are allowing ourselves to implode. We are gradually destroying all of our natural lifelines, and we are focusing on matters that will ultimately hasten our demise as well as other lifeforms around us. What will it take to revive our seemingly suppressed sapience back to the forefront of our consciousness where it can guide us appropriately? What do we have to do and if we do it will it actually make a difference? Can we turn back the tide of human indifference and a rapidly developing raw and un-tempered reverence for AI? As foresters we have a closer link to natural systems than many others do. We see the effect of our actions on the environment and other lifeforms on a daily basis and therefore ought to be more in “contact” with our sentience than many others. Therein lies at least one answer to the questions that I have raised. We need to learn to extract real lessons from the observations we make of the environment and events that occur around us. Every external stimulus tells a story and we need to programme ourselves to find that story and apply it to our lives appropriately. Interpreting real life tangible events teaches us so much more than a convenient lifeless algorithm on social media. Applying lessons learnt contributes so much more than absorbing reams of inane inanimate digital servings. Actively recognising one’s own sapience via interpreting life observations, provides a lens through which one recognises the value of reallife, the need to preserve tangible and productive lifelines responsibly and identifies the omnipresence of AI. The sapience lens further allows one to assess the merits or not of accepting the AI offering, in what format to accept it if we choose that path, and to what extent. AI is here to stay. Of this I have no doubt. Our own actively regenerated sapience, however, may well be the final and, only. remaining defense against Super AI’s inexorable advance into our very state of being and humanity.
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