Earth Day and Arbor Day, 2021

Flowering crabapple in bloom

This year we are combining our Earth Day and Arbor Day issues to talk about deforestation and reforestation. You may want to revisit our 2019 Earth Day and 2020 Earth Day issues, and our 2020 Arbor Day issue, as well.

We live in the high country of western Colorado, where we are acutely aware of climate change, having lived through several consecutive years of drought. Summer temperatures continue to climb and will likely continue to do so for years, even decades.  Some climatologists have warned us that this coming August may be the hottest one on record, with many days above 94 degrees.

 

 

Such temperatures can be devastating to both people and animals. The number of deaths from heat exhaustion and heat stroke are likely to go up sharply.  They are particularly dangerous for the elderly and for children with respiratory problems.

Are catches like this a thing of the past?

 

Both livestock and native animals will suffer.  Many animals, particularly mammals and birds, are raising families at this time and mortality rates for them are already high.  In some cases. entire species maybe wiped out. High temperatures, especially combined with low water levels, threaten native fish populations as well.  In some places stream flows are shrinking so much that officials are calling for limits on fishing or even years when there may be no fishing at all.

Last year we saw the three most severe wildfires in state history. There is no longer a "fire season".  Major fires can — and do — happen year around. In their wake come landslides and more frequent and severe avalanches.  Without protective ground cover, the land will not hold snow-melt or spring rains, often causing flash flooding down-stream.

 

Native mule deer (print by Annake)

Here in Colorado, the large areas where whole stretches of forest died from beetle-kill some years ago have posed even more problems.  A decision was made over large areas neither to clear-cut nor to cut patches or lanes of dead trees and replant with aspen or young evergreens that are immune to the beetles.  This has led to both large, unsightly areas of dead trees along major highways and also loss of habitat for many native animals.

 

Except for water birds, almost all native birds — from songbirds to raptors — are dependent upon trees for food, shelter, nesting places, etc.  Clear-cutting of large areas of native forest interrupts birds' migration patterns, breeding seasons, number of broods, survival of offspring, and general health of the populations.  Some birds can, given time, adjust to living in towns and cities, but most cannot.  The barn owl,  for example,  can be found in barn lofts and other relatively undisturbed places as well as in the wild, but it has had centuries in which to make that adjustment. Other species are running out of time.

Rocky Mountain Goat (print by Annake)

Oddly enough,  the wood of the dead trees is extremely attractive and is much in demand for architectural panels and other uses. Now, it might seem simple to clear-cut the areas and use the money for the sale of the wood to pay for new plantings, but that may not be such a good idea. Clear-cut areas of 40 acres or more often suffer from erosion and over-use.  There would be no shelter for the small, newly-planted trees.  A slower approach with smaller clearings may be more successful, particularly where the land is relatively steep.  Planting aspen first might give a better chance for successful reforestation. Quick-growing but relatively short-lived, the aspen could act as  "nurse trees" for the young evergreens while creating beautiful autumn scenes to attract viewers.  Another suggestion that has merit is to choose young evergreen species from places like New Mexico and Arizona, which are already adapted to hotter and drier climates.  By the time the trees mature, the climate is likely to have become even hotter and drier.  Experts from many fields need to cooperate to design good plans for these areas.

Click here to download

Earth Day will be celebrated on April 22nd, 2021, in 170 different countries. The poster to the left is available as a free download from the U.S. government website, https://share.america.gov/.  There is also an official Earth Day 2021 poster available at https://www.earthday.org/, by Brazilian artist Speto, which is being sold for fund raising.

 

The theme for this year is "RESTORE OUR EARTH!" First and foremost, discussion will be about the disappearance of the planet's tropical rain forests.

Tropical rain forests are found on both sides of the Equator, usually between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. They are rapidly disappearing due to clear-cutting for farms and ranches, as well as simply for money. Let me try to put this in perspective. One and a half acres of trees are cut down every second. That means 36 football fields worth of trees are cut every minute. Multiply that by the minutes in an hour and the hours in a day and you can see how enormous the problem is. Twenty percent of the world's oxygen is generated by rain forest trees.  About 20,000 species of rain forest plants are expected to disappear in the next 25 years. When you consider that at least a quarter of our current cancer-fighting drugs, as well as other medicines, come from the rain forests of the Amazon, that is a very significant fact. Deforestation also disrupts the water cycle. Trees absorb groundwater and release it back into the atmosphere through the process of transpiration from their leaves. That water is pure and clean, making the air good to breathe.

 

Endangered Species, a few of many

If you are concerned, as you know we are, for endangered species of animals, just think of this: the existing rain forests cover only about 7 per cent of the earth's surface. But they contain more than HALF of the earth's species. Just this morning I read an article about how illegal poaching of elephants for their ivory tusks, combined with the loss of habitat from deforestation, are pushing the African elephants closer and closer to extinction.  And that is just one species among many.

Much of the deforested trees are used for the making of paper.  The greatest consumers of that paper are from North America, Europe, and Japan. None of these areas have rain forests of their own. The average U.S. household may get as much as 40 pounds of "junk mail" every year.  That makes recycling and reuse a "must" for most of us.

Free stickers/stamps available from the Arbor Day Foundation

"In Times of Uncertainty, Plant a Tree."

Dan Lambe, President, Arbor Day Foundation

The official date for Arbor Day 2021 is April 30, 2021.  Ordinarily there would be a special theme with special activities to honor the occasion. But this is not an ordinary year. The pandemic has made many activities difficult or impossible.  Arbor Day started in the U.S. in the state of Nebraska and became a country-wide celebration. It has now spread to many other nations around the world.  Each state may have its own designated Arbor Day. The dates vary greatly from Florida to Alaska, depending upon the dates when young trees can safely be planted. Free trees which are appropriate for a region are available from the Arbor Day Foundation.

Here are some suggestions for activities which individuals, families, or small groups, following the Covid rules, might do to celebrate the occasion:

• Plan a hike or bike ride to a park or forest are to study and admire the trees. Stay on the designated paths. take a bag along and pack out any trash that you come across. Enjoy and appreciate the trees.
• Make a poster, take a photograph, draw or paint a picture of a particular tree. Check out our post, "Trees in Art and Design," to give you some ideas.
• Read the poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, or write a poem, rap, or song about forests or a particular tree.
• Search for online lessons about trees, forestry, what to do (and all the things that you should NOT do) if you are lost, injured, or stranded in a forest.
• Learn how to understand, interpret, and count tree rings.
• Join and/or contribute to a group fighting for the survival and recovery of the rain forests. The Arbor Day Foundation and EarthDay.org are great places to start; plus, they have their own lists of activities that you can add to this one.
  

What does he do who plants a tree
He plants for sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty,
And far-cast thought of civic good
His blessing on the neighborhood.
                                             Charles Lathrop Pack

To the trees!

 This post by Annake's Garden is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.