Forest Medicine, Chaga and the Economy Hidden in the Trees — Muji Zia
What does it cost to keep living out of integrity with what you know?
Muji Zia trained as a pharmacist in the UK, retrained as a medical herbalist in the US, then moved to Sweden — living on an organic farm near the Arctic Circle in exchange for tending the gardens — to complete an MSc in Forest Ecology and Sustainable Forest Management at SLU (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences). His thesis: the in vitro cultivation of Chaga (Inonotus obliquus). His conclusion: a single birch tree inoculated with Chaga is already worth 10x its timber value. And Scandinavian forests are still being clear-cut.
In this episode of Spore Journeys, forest ecologist, medical herbalist, and founder of Forest Medicine Muji Zia talks with host Milan about what forests are actually worth — ecologically, medicinally, economically, and spiritually — when we stop reducing them to timber.
We also bring in Mycelium Hub's own story: the old-growth forest in Värmland, Sweden, that deeply shaped our Chaga research and was clear-cut in August 2025. The grief of that loss, and what it taught us about the relationship between healing a landscape and healing ourselves, runs through the whole conversation.
What we cover:
— Pharmacy → herbalism → forest ecology: why each career change was an act of integrity, not impulsiveness — and what "the normalisation of incoherence" costs us
— Chaga ecology and medicine: the parasitic relationship with birch, melanin as antioxidant armour, triterpenes (betulinic acid), mycopolysaccharides, and anti-inflammatory properties
— Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) as an economic model: why continuous cover forestry outperforms clear-cutting — and why the UK still imports 80% of its timber despite its own forestry operations
— Chaga cultivation economics: inoculation timelines, harvest cycles, the quality-vs-quantity trade-off in secondary metabolites, and what research in Finland and Estonia shows Sweden is missing
— Forest Kola: the adaptogenic tonic made with medicinal fungi (reishi, chaga), kola nut, guarana, and ashwagandha — built to energise without depleting adrenal function
— Value chains and land regeneration: how a product with a strong market presence can drive agroforestry decisions all the way back to the land
— Right relationship with the forest: what indigenous knowledge, mycology, and years of practice teach us about why exploitation becomes impossible once you're truly in relationship
🎧 Listen on Spotify and YouTube
💼 Muji Zia — Forest Medicine (UK): https://forestmedicine.org.uk | Instagram: @uk.forestmedicine
🌱 Mycelium Hub: https://linktr.ee/myceliumhub
Related episode: EP08 with Tommi Ullgrén (Finland) on continuous cover forestry and Chaga cultivation in the boreal forest.
