… Last fall I tried to start some acorns from a friend's chestnut oak, which also belongs to the white oak group, but the squirrels dug them all up and carried them off. This year I'll plant my acorns in flowerpots and protect them with bricks and hardware cloth. Come spring, I'll hand the seedlings out like Easter eggs. If I can talk my new human neighbors into planting these seedlings in their yards, they'll have shade again someday, and our wild neighbors will have food and shelter, too.
Maybe it seems pointless, all this hope based on nothing more than a couple of dozen acorns. Even if they all germinate, even if they survive rabbits and drought long enough to reach acorn-bearing age, how much difference will it even make? In the context of rampant deforestation and massive biodiversity loss, will it matter if one small neighborhood in one growing city becomes a safe place for oak trees and the creatures they shelter and feed?
My answer lies in the acorn itself: As the old English proverb goes, mighty oaks from little acorns grow.
But a lot, I admit, depends on what happens next. "We hope that society as a whole can rethink its attitudes. Simple, everyday acts can go a long way," João Víctor Gomes de Oliveira of the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil told the Times Opinion editor Isvett Verde. If planting an oak tree is the first small step in rethinking everyday life, it could matter a lot... Margaret Renkl
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/opinion/oak-trees-conservation-ecosystems.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
We need policies that preserve forests and we need policies that preserve urban trees. In the meantime, I've started planting. (Read for free via this gift link from @nytopinion.) https://t.co/n6qXu25sBN
— Margaret Renkl (@MargaretRenkl) October 17, 2022
No comments:
Post a Comment