A Moratorium on Cutting Trees

No exceptions.

Tree death is not like people death. Yes, like people, some trees die of old age. Some die of disease. Some are victims of accidents.

By far, most of the trees that die are killed.

Because we are so quick to kill them, we mostly don’t get to see a tree die a good, natural death. We don’t see trees age, get decrepit, change shape, begin to lose entire limbs, get heart-rot—until finally all life is gone and only a snag is left, full of holes where woodpeckers are digging out insects. It starts to crumble.

That is death and dying for a tree. It’s beautiful.

Now I am seeing trees dying in a new way. It’s not an unheard-of way—I’ve seen trees die like this before. But I’m seeing it a lot, everywhere I go, in fact. Random trees are dying. Sometimes they’re in a grove, sometimes in a fence row, sometimes on a city lot. And they die.

They die singly. They die young. They die in the arms of the trees around them. They die with their grove-mates trying to save them.

One year they look fine, green and waving, and the next year they are bare-limbed, falling down in pieces.

Study the photo below. That one tree, in a line of trees, is dead.

I know it’s climate change.

Go ahead. Say it’s pine beetles or too much Roundup or something else. But I’ve been a tree-lover for decades now, and this is something different. I’m not writing about it to scare you. I’m writing to say we’ve got to start cooling this planet down.

Today I worked in town. When I drove home at 5 the temperature said 97 degrees. Living in the subtropics, I’ve seen the temperature much hotter than 97. But this current heat is different. It’s a sucking heat that dries everything out and eats up nitrogen in the topsoil. It creates a strange blue haze in the near-distance that reminds me of smoke. Except it isn’t smoke.

Thank god it isn’t smoke.

I’m proposing an absolute moratorium on cutting trees. Yes, I am. Starting tonight. No more cutting of trees.

We need every single one of them for the days, months, and years to come. True, more oxygen comes from ocean algae, but trees do more than breathe out oxygen. They cool, they filter, they shade, they protect, they harbor. They are the planet’s parasols. Without trees we are toast.

Tree-cutting is over. We will be retraining all loggers. Log trucks will no longer be permitted on the highways. Paper is going to get very expensive. Sorry. Not sorry.

Okay, let me add a caveat to the moratorium. It will be for a period of five years while we develop ways to live without killing trees. Then maybe we can selectively cut a few. But old-growth cutting is permanently over.

I snapped these photos today, on my way home from town, and I want to leave you with one last image of a crepe myrtle blooming on the farm. I wait all year to see this big old fluff-ball of cotton candy. As Mary Oliver would say, Have you ever in the world seen anything more beautiful?

They are special beings, trees. I have been in love with them for all my life. I am more in love with them now than ever.