A lament for the trees that now are gone
Trees, like these oaks, offer shelter for birds and other creatures and cover for smaller plants that grow beneath them. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images/James Leynse
My neighborhood lost two more trees this week. That I know of.
Both were oaks. One was majestic, a good 100-feet-plus. Looking out from my house, there is a hole in the sky where their canopies once spread.
The issue, my neighbor said, was that the termites and carpenter ants that had invaded their garage came from the trees. There was no choice but to take them down, my neighbor said, especially given the threat the trees when weakened eventually would pose to nearby houses and garages.
Several other trees also were taken down in the last few months in the blocks around us. I don’t know the stories behind their removals but I am familiar with the wincing wistfulness their absence creates. It’s nothing like the aftermath of the storm trifecta of Irene, Lee and Sandy in 2011-12, when Long Islanders understandably unnerved by the power interruptions and damage to homes and cars exacted by falling trees went on their own preemptive felling spree. The sound of chain saws and wood chippers pierced the air for weeks.
It’s an old story with many branches. Trees — along with other flora and lots of fauna — are inevitable casualties when we humans invade natural spaces. We clear the land for houses because the trees are in the way, plant new trees to re-prettify the area, then take down those trees when they get too big, warp sidewalks, or pose other problems.
And we’ve gotten awfully good at it. A tree which takes decades to grow to its full function and glory can be eradicated by humans in a few hours.
We call this progress in suburbia.
There are, of course, many reasons to lament the loss of trees. Start with the aesthetics. Trees are beautiful in all their tints and infinity of shapes. They give us shade and lower temperatures, especially important nowadays. They offer shelter for birds and other creatures and cover for smaller plants that grow beneath them. Some species provide food for small mammals in the form of acorns and other nuts.
And we’re finding, increasingly, that the roots of trees (and other vegetation) help hold soil in place, reduce erosion, and absorb water in the form of rain that pelts us these days with unaccustomed ferocity.
Trees, in other words, are linchpins in our ecosystem. Perhaps a certain amount of melancholy is a natural reaction to their loss.
Over the long arc of time, of course, landscapes always change. Sometimes nature is the actor, sometimes humans. In northern Arizona recently, we drove across a long ridge area whose forest had been devastated a few years ago by a fire. Now, it was thick with shrubs and dotted with aspens 6 or 7 feet tall and climbing. Nature is adept at rejuvenation.
The jury is out on humankind.
Sometimes, I try to imagine my neighborhood before its development. I see vast woods cut through with indigenous trails and teeming with life both winged and footed. Now, we seem to be laying down ever more pavement and building ever more structures and taking down ever more trees and hearing ever fewer bird calls and seeing ever fewer butterflies.
Fortunately, we’re also hearing ever more calls to preserve our open spaces and seeing ever more people seeking out what passes for the wild in appreciation for how different it is.
Perhaps someday we’ll get better at managing this balance. Better at understanding that all we’ve built won’t matter much if we can’t hang on to what nourishes and delights and inspires us.
You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone? By now, we should know very well.
My neighbor wants to plant new trees to replace the ones now gone. They would be shorter, pose less of a threat. But they would be trees.
That will be nice.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
