THE TREES MUST FALL?

Rex Burress

Most folks realize that trees, like mankind and the rest of living things, don't live forever on this round-about earth, and fall in time.

Nevertheless, we like to see trees standing tall, transmitting their beauty and good functions to the life of this planet. That mostly reads, oxygen to enable us to breathe and food to eat. Yet we're seeing more and more of the green canopies falling in the wake of fires, floods, wind, and community whims...and others being sawed down for various reasons.

The thing about a tree, is it starts from a seed, often a mere speck, as we see in the towering redwoods, or an oak growing tall from an acorn, that if afflicted by a defect, can come crashing down. No one in a compact community wants a tree to fall as it can cause damage and loss. Yet, communities love their leafy shade and green beauty, and would rather have them around, begrudging the loss of a single branch.

Thus we saw the grievous wildfire destruction in Paradise damage the forest community beyond repair, and the tree take-down ensued, as with the clean-up of the destroyed houses. Nearly all the burnt trees—an estimated 350,000 mostly pine...air-givers that filtered the air of pollution...glorifiers of the landscape...comrade to the living fauna...destined to be hauled away—but to where? The situation has been given a new word--”Log Decks!” Which means piles of logs!”--with insufficient mills to saw the logs into lumber.

The harsh words; 'you could burn it,' isn't very feasible when the word fire is very distasteful to that burned out community, and we don't want anymore excess smoke.

Another major question: “How much forest replanting is practical?” And with what species of trees? Pines have proved their explosiveness, and any regrown vegetation will be fuel for fire if a spark and a high-wind ever come again.

My esteemed silver maple in my front yard died from the drought and I reluctantly, had to have it removed for safety. It is a costly matter to have a tree removed--$900 for that one. Birds liked that dead tree and nested in the cavities. But it's lose, lose, with a dead city tree.

PG&E states that they plan to trim or remove some 375,000 damaged Paradise trees, in addition to roughly one million trees its crews remove annually! Folks, this is habitat removal—the very thing wildlife depends on—the very environmental factors for life on Earth...and air for man-kind...manipulated in order to supply electricity to cities and to cabins up the canyon, or to misplaced houses tucked away into flammable forests.

Of course, our Oroville Tree City USA is stuffed full of trees and plants by plant-loving people stuffed into small living spaces. Of course, people don't want limbs to fall on their car or property, hence the cry to prune the embracing tree limbs down central Montgomery Street, limbs that form the most embracing tunnel of shade and love in Oroville. All those limbs and leaves support a glorious display of autumnal color in the fall. If the leaves were gone the wail would be as great as when the wail went out to trim, or like when the wail went out to save the gallant sycamores fronting Oroville Cemetery that were to be cut. PG&E again; removal for the safety of citizens. That was a major loss that should have been avoided by diverting the pipeline around the cemetery in order to save the healthy sycamores. Too late.

John Muir was a defender of trees who said, “The woods are full of dead and dying trees, yet needed for their beauty to complete the beauty of the living.” The woods that Muir was speaking of was the woods of the wilderness, where an old tree can fall without any conflict with human communities, where roots can feed on the enriched soil and the decomposers can complete their job.

“Going to the woods is going home.”--John Muir

The Nature Conservancy launched the “Plant a Billion Trees” in Brazil in 2008. Twenty nine million native trees have been planted on 28,000 acres in order to restore ravaged woodlands in the largest rain-forest on earth.