I grew up in the mountains, and spent a lot of time alone in the forest. As a result, I suspect, I have always been keenly aware of trees, and always had an awe-struck respect for them. I find few things more emotionally effecting than, on my frequent train trips to Vancouver, the fields of incredible numbers of felled trees at the various logging operations along the train line. I can only hope that the logging in question is FSC certified, but even if so, it would be of little consolation. And regardless, there is something so shocking and disrespectful to me in the act of cutting down a tree that even the seemingly responsible stewardship of some organizations appears inconsequential.
To kill a being which might well have been alive for many hundreds of years, or as in many cases of the logging industry’s past: trees of many thousands of years in age . . . to kill these beings is to me indicative of the near-zero reverence many humans give to nature, akin to the massacre of countless bison on this continent in the early-to-mid 1800s.
(above: 19 men on a tree stump, and two men standing with a mountain of bison skulls.)
Somehow though, cutting down trees seems more perverse than killing animals or even humans (as the early settlers of Australia would hunt Aboriginals for sport (I’ll spare you those images)). Perhaps this perversion i interpret is because of how fundamental trees are to the life sustaining powers of the earth. It is nearly literally as if we chose in our early industrial history to slowly cut out our lungs, using the material to house and heat ourselves. Surely trees were unmatched as a cheap, readily available resource for powering trains, and building furniture, as well as houses, and indeed: whole cities even into the early 20th century. Cheap, and perhaps only considered a unchecked resource, because of an economy which systematically devalues nature. I wonder sometimes if our growth and advances were truly worth the losses.
Incidentally, concern for the loss of trees / nature to industry is no new idea, as the following quote illustrates:
One thing is sure, the Earth is now more cultivated and developed than ever before. There is more farming with pure force, swamps are drying up, and cities are springing up on an unprecedented scale. We’ve become a burden to our planet. Resources are becoming scarce, and soon nature will no longer be able to satisfy our needs.
—Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, Roman Theologian. 200 B.C.E
Concurrent with Tertullianus’ writing, 2 centuries before the birth of Christ, fig trees in the the land now called Israel were planted. Some of these trees still exist, and under some, we can still sit. From some of these trees, we can still gather fruit. These trees are treasures, a part of our cultural and environmental heritage, and reminders of the scales on which the Earth reckons time. This is all the more amazing considering that merely 10% of the forests and trees now present on our planet are of this ‘old growth,’ as we call it. Which is a shame, especially because they are now understood to capture carbon from our atmosphere at a much greater rate than any newer forests. (It is believed that the old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. of A and in Russia account for up to 20% of the total global carbon sequestration.)
Obviously the early loggers in our country didn’t realize the extent of the damage they were causing to the planet, they lacked the ecological framework by which to understand their actions. But it’s hard to forgive them their ignorance. And I readily admit an element of hypocrisy in my derision of the early zealousness of the industry, as an artist and musician, woods are one of the most delightful, beautiful materials to use. It is only with a bitter sweetness that i enjoy my many guitars and piano. At times the experience borders on shame, in fact.
Still, it certainly seems at present that better choices can be made for a good many of our uses for wood, as an industrial material. And while it at least can be said that using trees for art is a semi-noble pursuit, rather than burning it as fuel and for heat, it is a shallow excuse at best.
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