Go plant a tree!

Graduation book 

When my daughter graduated from high school recently, she was given a copy of a little book illustrated with woodcuts about a fictional character who discovered the secret and the power of one individual being able to accomplish something really amazing. The book is called The Man Who Planted Trees and is written by Jean Giorno. It was written after one of the world wars, no doubt in the spirit of somehow wanting to see hope in a better future after so much gratuitous destruction and waste of life. It is hard to get the book, but luckily you can read the online story and a bit about the author.

In fact there was a man who made planting trees his life's work. When I started blabbering about him one day, my father recalled having met him during the time he was a botanist and agriculturalist in East Africa. Sir Richard St Barbe Baker was even known as the Man of the Trees and he founded a worldwide organisation called Men of the Trees, which is still active. He accomplished so much to make known the advantages of planting trees - knowledge which is now taken for granted in countries like Australia which cut through whole swathes of lush forest for pasture and ended up with dry, brown, eroded earth. Denuded, scarred, barren earth not even fit for native animals to graze on. It's still there, but farmers are learning to plant trees to raise the water table, to bring the topsoil back, to make the land green again.

Meanwhile, as the annual haze drifts over us here in our beautifully (and deliberately) green garden city, I am reminded of how each generation somewhere has to learn the lessons of responsibility to the environment the hard way. The smoke comes from forest fires in nearby Sumatra, Indonesia, where farmers and plantation owners burn trees to clear land for cultivation, despite a government ban. The air quality is worse in Malaysia and some flights have been diverted, schools are being closed and the elderly and asthmatic advised to stay indoors. In 1997 and 1998 the economic loss to Malaysia (and the region)was reported to be billions of dollars. Not good for us neighbours, but not good ultimately for Sumatra either. Loss of tree cover can lead to tragedy and loss of life in countries which realise too late that cleared land can prove a devastating cause of subsidence, mudslides and flooding on the one hand and the disappearance of diversity in the ecosystem and over-reliance on monoculture, with all the economic precariousness that brings about, on the other.

So it is heartening to hear of grassroots efforts to challenge the way things are done in order to bring back balance in the natural environment and achieve better levels of economic prosperity at the same time. Again it is a true story about one man in Kerala, India who went ahead with passionate determination to green his space. Would that we all followed his example because the warnings are dire and distressing.

So long as greed, corruption and injustice walk this planet so will our fragile biosphere be compromised. We all need to have a bit of the spirit of Richard St Barbe Baker or the farmer from Kerala in us, and never underestimate the power of one, nor the assistance that can be made available.

"Look not at your own capacities, for divine bestowal can transform a drop into an ocean; it can make a tiny seed a lofty tree."