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The Ungreening of the World
Joan Maloof is the author of Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest. She teaches biology and environmental issues at Salisbury University in Maryland, USA.
by Joan Maloof
Everyone I meet claims to love trees - I mean really love trees - yet collectively the human race behaves as if it abhors green things. If you take a step back from whatever biome you are in at the moment and look at the entire Earth and its forests through recorded history, you will see that the relationship between humans and trees looks Strangely Like War (the title of a recent book on forests by Derrick Jensen and George Draffan).
The exact extent of the damage is difficult to discern, because for many years records were not kept, but the estimates are that 75% of the world’s original forests have been logged or burned by humans. Some of them have grown back of course, or have been replanted, but it is thought that we now have only half of the amount of forest land we once had on this planet.
In some places, particularly the drier places of the globe, the deforestation was so severe, and was followed by such intense grazing, that forests have not been able to grow back. The landscape has been permanently altered.
When you imagine Greece, Italy, and Iraq, it is likely that you imagine a dry landscape with open views, the way they look today. Historical records indicate, however, that these places were once covered by dense forests. The forests fell as civilizations flourished, so the earlier a place became "civilized" the sooner it became deforested.
This march of so-called progress resulting in the loss of forests was documented by John Perlin in his 1989 book A Forest Journey.
So today we sit on a planet with only 50% of its forest cover remaining. And here’s the part that should bring tears to your eyes: we continue to lose more forest cover every year.
The more recent losses are well documented. Every five years the United Nations produces a summary report called the Global Forest Resource Assessment; The team in charge of assembling the assessment relies on internet reporting and satellite surveillance to come up with the figures. According to the most recent report, between 2000 and 2005, we lost forest acreage equivalent to the land mass of Panama - more than 77 thousand square kilometers of forest gone, some of it never to return.
The next report is due to be released in 2010. I will not be surprised when it is released and I read that the global forest area has continued to shrink.
If this happens when we claim to love trees, I shudder to think what would happen if we were ambivalent about them? Or thought we could live without them?
In the United States, deforestation began as soon as the colonies were settled. Before long, the colonies were exporting wood to the many nations that no longer had the timber they needed for ships, casks, shingles, and other construction materials. Trees were also cut to clear cropland, provide heat, and the fledgling nation was using up its forests to build its own ironworks and railroads as well.
By 1920, more than three-quarters of the US’s original forests had been cut. Similar to the global figures, today the US has only half the forest cover that it had in 1600. And we continue to destroy forest land.
At the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro it was agreed that, "efforts should be undertaken towards the greening of the world." The UN recognizes that "forests are essential to economic development and all forms of life." But the UN Charter also reads: "states have the sovereign right to exploit their own resources." And so we do.
Although the UN and my country recognize the value of forests, both ecologically and economically, such recommendations are not strong enough to stop my local council from voting "yes" to deforestation. Last week, I went to a zoning meeting in the town where I live. A real estate housing project developer wanted to cut many acres of trees so he could build houses. That forest land will be lost, probably forever, and a few more numbers will be added to the global deforestation total next year.
Why do local politicians, tree lovers all, allow yet more forest destruction? Why do humans all claim to love trees, but their actions deny their claim? I think it has to do with fear. When a would-be exploiter of trees stands before a politician and requests, or demands, the right to clear a forest, the politician, out of fear, complies. But we do not fear trees. We do not fear their retaliation.
Trees stand mute despite our betrayal. Perhaps that is one of the reasons we really love them. But if we want to do more than love them, if we want to save them, we must become fearless.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2006.
www.project-syndicate.org
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Thankyou Joan
Thankyou Joan Maloof for reminding me.
Politics begun for me in the forests of NSW and it is still only the forests which can save us. Worried about climate change? Like Jenny, look for opportunities to plant a few trees, and like Joan, look for opportunities to save a few.
Don't hug them though, or do so only with caution. They're a bit scratchy and often have bitey things crawling on them.
Meanwhile amongst the deadwood
Hamish: Hi. Miss you around here so good to know you still drop by.
Now trees. We will all have to get planting again. Have just returned from two days amidst the almost snowless Snowy hills. Big dams way down, and on the hills, millions upon millions of dead trees from the 2003 fires. The Main Range is a sorry sight. Make you weep as I know that scene stretches from the ACT to Vic. The parts that did not burn remind us of what we have lost.
So with the trees naked in death, no wonder the snow is thin on the ground. The dams will not get much of a top up this year.
Meanwhile back at the Lodge, the well heeled in their fancy outfits head out for another day on the man made stuff. And my cousin and I go round and turn off twelve lights left blazing in the Lodge.
So live for today, let tomorrow worry about itself. And our grandkids will probably fry.
Oh well. Better fence off another corner and stick in a few more. Keeps me happy and out of mischief. A lot written about keeping happy on WD of late so better take notice I guess.
Cheers Hamish and here's to trees, trees and more trees. Regards to Margo, and hope she is doing OK.
`a wonder-filled book for a wonderful boy'
My favourite piece on deforestation:
"Every now and again as I write I interrupt myself and go to the window. The sky is empty, and for us old folk of Ombrosa, used to living under those green domes, it hurts the eyes to look out now. Trees seem almost to have no right here since my brother left them or since men have been swept by this frenzy for the axe. And the species have changed too; no longer are there ilexes, elms, oaks; nowadays Africa, Australia, the Americas, the Indies, reach out roots and branches as far as here. What old trees exist are tucked away on the heights; olives on the hills, pines and chestnuts in the mountain woods; the coast below is a red Antipodes of eucalyptus, of swollen convolvulus, huge and isolated garden growths, and the whole of the rest is palms, with their scraggy tufts, inhospitable trees from the desert.
Ombrosa no longer exists. Looking at the empty sky, I ask myself if it ever did really exist. That mesh of leaves and twigs of fork and froth, minute and endless, with the sky glimpsed only in sudden specks and splinters, perhaps it was only there so that my brother could pass through it with his tom-tit's tread, was embroided on nothing, like this thread of ink which I have let run on for page after page, swarming with cancellations, corrections, doodles, blots and gaps, bursting at times into clear big berries, coagulating at others into piles of tiny starry seeds, then twisting away, forking off, surrounding buds of phrases with frameworks of leaves and clouds, the interweaving again, and so running on and on until it sputters and bursts into a last senseless cluster of words, ideas, dreams, and so ends."
Italo Calvino `Baron in the Trees'
On the subject of trees
A truly majestic tree is something to behold. That anyone could put an axe into it without feeling some sense of regret is hard to imagine.
When I look at the cedar panels in the old house I cannot help but think of those giants that were sacrificed almost to the last tree. And when one sees the woodchips going out and the bare hills of the Monaro, one can only wonder at our short sightedness. Pine plantations? Well. In Canberra, we found out at awful cost just how suited they were to the Australian landscape. They do grow very well in the southern climate zones but in a dry continent with highly flammable native forests adjoining the plantations you then have a highly explosive mix.
But I suppose we must have timber. Pity when it takes 20 years to grow though and then burns to the ground.
Once one starts planting trees it is actually hard to stop. A tree conscious neighbour got us started around 14 years ago, and today there are around 5000 native trees harbouring countless species of wildlife on the property. And whenever a young tree comes up in an open paddock one feels compelled to build a guard around it to give it a chance to beat the cattle.
But the rewards for the hard labour are now many. Flocks of native birds feeding on the nectar of the wattles and the magnificent red flowering gum, lizards, goannas, snakes in abundance, kangaroos sheltering from the midday sun, are now an integral part of our landscape. It may have taken a bit of land out of production, but it feels and looks good! But it is addictive. Everywhere I go on the place I think, ah yes. Could get that corner fenced off and put a few in there. Yes, it is totally addictive.
Native Vegetation laws in NSW are an attempt to preserve native species in NSW, but they are receiving strong resistance from many landholders, and sometimes justifiably. Once the balance of native vegetation has been upset, the law makers fail to realise that just locking up land is not the answer to recovery. Certain species such as cypress pine, various wattles and shrubs become invasive and predominant, often resulting in a different form of land degradation, sterile even to native fauna.
In the Warrumbungle National Park, workers have to go through and manually cut many of the young self sown cypress trees, to allow the remainder to thrive. This is costly in the extreme. Where we have locked up country, the cypress pines have returned like the proverbial hair on the cat's back. Unless thinned out it will be a monoculture of spindly trees within a decade. Anyone for a free Chrissy tree?
Native grasses are different but they take many years to re-establish after land has been taken out of cropping. Around ten years is the norm but when these species do come back, they are more drought resistant than the introduced pasture species.
When one sees a dead gum tree, it is hard not to see it as just a good source of firewood. But we were induced by a forester to leave many large dead trees standing on the property till they fell of their own accord. Native birds commonly nest in the hollow trunks of dead trees and that was something I had never even thought of till it was pointed out. So even dead trees have a purpose beyond firewood.
It is with dismay that I see the massive dieback in the highly saline areas around Yass and Boorowa. Tree planting by property owners in that area falls far short of that in areas further north, yet nowhere could it be more vital. However, tree planting is a very costly business and fencing is in the order of $4000 per kilometre and it is very hard labour for an ageing rural population. That I do know!
Got another 3000 to plant next year. Anyone interested?