I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
-From "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer
TREES
There once was a woodsman who worked very hard but was never content. One day, a old hermit saw him in the woods and the two men got to talking. At the end of a pleasant hour, the wise man revealed that he had special powers and would grant the woodsman three wishes. He was told to call out "Raven, Raven, Raven" and he would come to grant his wish. The woodsman thought for a moment and said, "I want a wish now. I am lonely and would like a wife to share my bed and keep me warm at night."
That evening, on his way home from work he passed a maiden traveling in the same direction. She had long hair the color of a red pine tree that sparkled in the sun. They smiled at each other and fell instantly in love. The couple got married and before long they had five children, three boys and two girls. After the birth of their fifth child, the woodsman's wife complained that they needed a larger house, one that reflected his improved station in life, for he had become a lumberman who wore a shirt and tie to work.
The woodsman remembered the hermit he met in his youth. It had been a long time since their last meeting but he called out to see if he was a man of his word. "Raven, Raven, Raven," he cried and the old man appeared in his office. "My wife complains that the roof over our head is too small," the woodsman said. "I need a house that makes her happy and impresses my business partners.
That evening when he returned from work, his wife had a smile like the one she had when they first met. She stood in front of a large red door with a brass knocker the size of his forearm. The mansion before him had eight majestic columns that supported a porch with rocking chairs and a rocking horse for their youngest child. Inside were seven bedrooms and a dining room table made of the finest mahogany that was large enough to accommodate family and friends. The woodsman was content watching his children grow up, marry, and have children of their own.
One day, the woodsman looked in the mirror and saw wrinkles and hair that was grey. He went to the office but could only work a few hours before his back started hurting. It wouldn't be long before he died, he thought. He started to brood, began drinking too much, and complained about the unfairness of life to all who would listen. Sitting alone in his rocker one day, he remembered he had one more wish to ask of the hermit. "Raven, Raven, Raven," he shouted in a grumpy, demanding voice.
The old man appeared at once. "What do you want now?" he asked annoyed. "You have everything you need and gold bars in the vault for retirement."
"Use your magic to make me live longer than anything else on earth. I will watch life pass through the ages and be the most powerful man that ever lived," the woodsman said.
In the blink of an eye, the hermit disappeared and the woodsman was turned into a 300-year-old bristlecone pine. It was cool in the woods where he stood though the earth warmed outside the forest. He stood majestically tall by a trail overhearing young lovers pass and enjoying the feel of wind as it rustled its limbs. "I have good genes and will live to be 5,000 years old and will be the oldest and wisest tree in the woods," he bragged to his neighbors. "I'll know all that is happening and watch people come and go as the years pass."
Then, one day, a lumberman came by and saw the tree standing taller than any tree in the woods. "Let's cut it down, he said to his partner. We'll make a lot of money and have firewood left over to bring home to our wives." And so they did. And so the forest died.
__________
I love trees. Many of my walks are at the arboretum where I'm especially aware of the shape and feel of the bark of various species. On narrow trails, it is difficult to look up at the crown of a tree without tripping on a root as I walk, so my eyes stay closer to earth. When I look around it is at head level where I take note of the trees' bark. I am surprised at how soft and spongy California Redwoods and Giant Sequoias feel to the touch as compared to native Douglas Fir trees. Some bark is dark with deep furrows like the lines that gouge an old person's face while other bark is lined with long textured strands.
It's good to remember how these beautiful organisms cool the earth with their shade and release oxygen so we can breathe. Recent research shows they also communicate with each other. I wonder what they say as I walk by.
Best selling author and forester, Peter Wohlleben, in The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate, wrote that trees of the same species are communal and form alliances with trees of other species. Botanists call his discovery of an underground fungal network the "wood-wide web." They share water and nutrients through networks and communicate information about drought, disease and insect attacks. Distress signals are dispatched through hairlike root tips that join together with microscopic fungal filaments they use to send chemical, hormonal and slow-pulsing electrical signals that scientists are just beginning to decipher. They also communicate through the air, using scent signals.
When Wohlleben attended forestry school he was taught that trees needed to be thinned, that helicopter-spraying of pesticides and herbicides was essential, and that heavy machinery was the best logging equipment, even though it tears up soil. He worked this way for more than 20 years until he visited a few privately managed forests in Germany, which were not thinned, sprayed or logged by machines. "The trees were so much bigger and more plentiful," he observed. "Very few trees needed to be felled to make a handsome profit and it was done using horses to minimize the impact."
Trees alter their behavior when they receive distress messages. For instance, trees in Africa can make their leaves taste bad when giraffes start nibbling on nearby branches. Trees lend sugars where there are deficits from seasonal changes which is particularly beneficial between deciduous and coniferous trees.
At the University of British Columbia in Vancourver Canada, Suzanne Simmard and her grad students study the sensitivity and interconnectedness of trees in the temperate rainforests of western North America. She identified some trees as hub trees, or "mother trees."
Mother trees are the largest trees in forests and act as central hubs for the network below-ground. For young saplings trying to survive in a shaded part of the forest, the network is a lifeline. Mother trees support seedlings by injecting them with a sugary fungi. They change their root structure to make room for baby trees. Simmard says that to have resilient forests in an era of rapid climate change, large trees need to be conserved for they form the heart of a forest's communication network and are the lifeblood of the next generation.
* * *
Forests compose over 30 percent of the world's land area, but are disappearing at an alarming rate. Between 1990 and 2016, 502,000 square miles were lost, an area larger than South Africa. Eighty percent of the Earth's land animals and plants live in forests. Over 250,000 million people reside there and depend on trees for subsistence and income.
Countries that preserve forest ecosystems give conservationists a reason to hope. In addition to reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, billions of trees need to be planted across the globe and a sprinkling of nations are heeding their call. The Billion tree Campaign is managed by the nonprofit Plant for the Planet Foundation. Tree planing is the biggest and cheapest ways of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere to tackle the climate crisis. But, we need to start now because it will take 50 -100 years to reach its full effect of removing 200bn tonnes of carbon.
Below is the ranking of the top 100 countries in terms of how many trees they've planted last year.
Country - # Trees Planted
1. China - - 2,407,149,493
2. India - - 2,159,420,898
3. Ethiopia - - 1,725,350,234
4. Pakistan - - 1,006,776,724
5. Mexico - - 789,307,032
6. Turkey - - 711,103,088
7. Peru - - 646,502,236
8. Nigeria - - 626,725,667
9. Kenya - - 534,680,609
10. United States - - 315,586,982
A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
--Greek Proverb
