"The Guardian" Laments that Tree Planting Efforts Cannot Obtain Enough Tree Seedlings. We Are Focused On the Wrong End of the Equation
Tree planting has its place, but it also has its limitations. It doesn’t matter how many trees we plant if we are cutting them down too fast
When I was 11, I bought my first softball glove for $15, which I earned $3 at a time for mowing the lawn of Teeter Bridges, a family friend in North Middletown, Kentucky. In that job alone, I mowed down hundreds of silver maple and black walnut seedlings over the course of three summers. Later on, I was a groundskeeper for 12 years and mowed down countless thousands of tree seedlings, including maple, oak, sycamore, catalpa, hackberry, black cherry, walnut, pine, holly and crabapple.
There’s a time to plant trees. But where I live, trees will plant themselves if we do not mow them down. My 1/8 acre in Louisville is has ten species of native trees that I did not plant. They planted themselves.
Nursery grown trees can be problematic. They typically experience trauma that damages their roots and/or stunts their growth. And then you have to worry about putting them in the right place. But volunteer trees know they’re in the right place. If it didn’t want to grow there, it would not have sprouted. A volunteer tree might even have a nurturing relationship with “the mother tree.” Or maybe it was planted by a bird. Blue jays plant oak trees. Jays have planted oaks since they started to coevolve together in Southeast Asia 60 million years ago.
There’s a time to plant a tree. I’ve planted hundreds of trees as part of community tree planting projects. But it’s typically expensive and labor intensive.
Most yards into which I’ve planted trees would get better results if the owner would designate a “no mow” area and let the sun, the soil, the rain and the birds do the work of planting, watering and growing the trees.
But that’s landscaping.
When it comes to forestry, the problematic equipment is not the mower but the chain saw. We are cutting down forests faster than they can grow.
Here’s the question: When we plant trees by the thousands or millions or billions, who owns them? And therefore, who has the right to cut them down? And when? And why?
How do we know our work will not be completely negated? Those trees can grow for decades. So far, so good. But then comes the chain saw, because “we” (or somebody) has a better use for the trees or better use for the land on which they reside.
The timber industry likes 50 year old trees. Construction doesn’t care how old they are.
We will never have enough trees if we cut them down faster than they can grow.
In the Southern US and elsewhere, we clearcut forests, turn them into wood pellets and send the pellets to Europe to burn, so they can claim tax credits for “renewable” energy. The State of Virginia awards tax credits for clearcutting forests so that “we” can compete with “China,” according to Virginia resident Daniel Griffith.
We cut down trees to build railroads and railroad ties so we can transport toxic chemicals that spill in East Palestine, Ohio (and elsewhere). The point is, we are cutting down trees for purposes that benefit and enrich only a few people, not the many.
We cut trees for landscaping, for timber, for shopping centers, for high fructose corn syrup and for military bases that exceed any rational approach to “defense.”
We cut down trees to make ports and build ships to facilitate a global trade regime so “we” can have McDonald’s, Starbucks and Home Depot. I put “we” in quotes because there’s a question as to whether “we” chose this or whether it was chosen for us.
This article in “The Guardian” perpetuates the myth that we have a technocratic problem that requires a technocratic solution. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/31/us-tree-planting-goals-climate-crisis
We just need nurseries to expand capacity so we have more tree seedlings, so the story goes. And we just need to plant more trees.
But for now, tree planting volunteers are losing the competition with the chain saw. The chain saw is cutting down more trees than we can ever grow, no matter how many we plant.
We need to have a no BS conversation about WHO makes our most important decisions, and how the needs of the many might be balanced against the whim and ambitions of the few.
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To understand why trees and forests are important, please check out these three videos.
How Forests Bring Rain
How Trees Bring Rain
Plants, Evaporative Cooling and the Greenhouse Effect
I agree we need to have that conversation, but I think tat discouraging community planting is not a good idea. There are multiple benefits of Community planting, not least of which is education. When people understand how much trees matter, which they may only realise through participation in community planting projects, they are much more likely to engage with the destruction of forests. You can’t underestimate the impact of this. It is especially true for community projects that involve our children.
Excellent post, Hart.