If you're going to be searching both by forest and by plant, sounds like you would benefit from a full-on many-to-many relationship. Ditch your plants column, and create a whole new areas_plants table (or whatever you want to call it) to relate the two tables.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.