Mushrooms are proving to harbor a wealth of solutions to some of the most pressing problems humanity faces, yet they are becoming extinct at a rate that exceeds our ability to fully explore all they have to offer.

“If I can help advance this knowledge, I will have done my part to protect life on this planet…The time to act is now. Waiting for science and society to wake up to the importance of these ancient Old Growth fungi is perilously slow and narrow in vision.”

Paul’s excitement and genuine affection for mushrooms provides a window into a world that goes unexplored and misunderstood by so many of us. In this short film we will go on a mushroom hunting adventure and explore the capacity of mushrooms to heal cancer, and also investigate how we can all begin taking on a role of helping heal the planet through the use of mushrooms.

“The majority of my successes with mushrooms comes from the strategy of benign neglect.  It’s that humans, or my mind, thinks I know something and I’m working with the mushrooms and they are speaking to me, they are basically just saying ‘no, no, you got part of it right but most of it is wrong.  Leave me alone and I’ll show you what I want you to see.’ And then I walk away from them, and I come back and I go ‘oh my goodness, look at this!’ Ah! Now I understand!”

Paul has discovered ways to work with mushrooms to clean toxic waste pollution and oils spills, in addition to doing  ground breaking research on the medical uses of mushrooms.  Perhaps one of the most extraordinary coincidences is the research that Paul worked on regarding mushroom’s ability to treat breast cancer was used on his own mother without his prior knowledge.

In 2008, Paul received the National Geographic Adventure Magazine’s Green-Novator and the Argosy Foundation’s E-chievement Awards. He was also named one of Utne Reader’s “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World”

Why is this story worth telling? This story will rearrange the way people look at the world around them, perhaps influence what they choose to plant in their backyard and get renewed hope in our ability to recover and restore land that has been damaged.