Trees that can walk up to 20m per year

“As the soil erodes, the tree grows new, long roots that find new and more solid ground, sometimes up to 20m,” explains Peter Vrsansky, a palaeobiologist from the Slovak Academy of Sciences who worked for a few months in the Unesco Sumaco Biosphere Reserve, about a day’s journey from Ecuador’s capital Quito. “Then, slowly, as the roots settle in the new soil and the tree bends patiently towards the new roots, the old roots slowly lift into the air. The whole process for the tree to relocate to a new place with better sunlight and more solid ground can take a couple of years.”