Recently, in my local neighbourhood I’ve witnessed three times now how developers have bought up properties, moved or destroyed the houses on them, then proceeded to cut down every single tree.
With the best of intentions, many public plantings have ceased to thrive because the basic requirements of how to grow different plants aren’t met, aren’t known or even thought of. It’s all about seeming to have good intentions and the kudos of ‘planting more trees’. But so often, after the photo opportunities have all died down, there’s no follow-up care of the plants to ensure their wellbeing and survival.
Trees grow very, very slowly. A new plant will take years to grow to maturity – years we may not have left if our present world trajectory of deforestation and climate change destruction continues. Every full-grown tree that’s cut down creates a loss not only to the plant world and its community, but to the health and survival of all humans as well.
And it seems, for very different reasons, the conflict over the maunga (mountain) trees in Auckland also continues. The removal of the English oaks and macrocarpa trees and re-planting them with natives has gone ahead in some places but is being stalled by the courts in others.
Aucklanders have proven to be very divided over this issue. Many protests and debates on both sides have ensued and some are
still ongoing.
Re-planting and re-creating new ecosystems is a complex task and requires a detailed knowledge of appropriate soil types and locations for different plants, knowledge of companion planting, feeding, irrigation, growing rates, ongoing pruning, etc. One size does not fit all.
With the fierce heat of our New Zealand summer approaching, I seriously doubt that exposed new seedlings would survive without the protection of established trees to shelter and nurture them.
The inhabitants of the present eco systems formed in and around these old trees that have stood there quietly for so long will also all be destroyed along with the trees. Eco systems take years to form and are highly complex, exquisitely interdependent communities that scientists are still learning about. Trees have an intelligence in the way they operate; in fact some scientists are now crediting them with sentience.
Do we have the right to just destroy them regardless of the reasons? Has it really come to this? That beautiful, noble oak trees and macrocarpas that house established eco systems and absorb so much of our CO2 emissions are to be chopped down because they’re non-native ‘exotics’?
Isn’t this rather arrogantly anthropocentric? Tree energy is one of the most gentle, benevolent and healing energies on our planet. Surely right now where our entire human species is heading for global extinction, it’s time to be less divided, more focused on the common goal of working together for our survival and realise that trees, all trees are a fundamental part of that survival.
Nature herself doesn’t differentiate so harshly. Trees are natural altruists. The Mother tree who heads each eco system community nurtures all the species within it, regardless of whether they’re native or exotic. She transcends their origins and species. To her, they’re all living entities that are all worthy of life and love.
Maybe there’s something we humans can all learn from this. (CLARE CALDWELL)
Clare (Claudie) Caldwell is a creative arts therapist who now runs a voluntary art and art therapy programme at Auckland City Mission. She is also a freelance artist.
Enquiries: T: 09 836 3618; M: 021 293 3171;
E: clare.e.caldwell@gmail.com
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