Trees are like people

Mother Nature loves us humans, the trees, all of creation. And we humans love this beautiful planet where we are privileged to spend a short amount of time. We are born, we live, and we die in the great cycle of life. We experience childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. We are given the most diverse destinies and recognize the rhythm of all life. Some trees, some people enjoy excellent health and reach a ripe old age, while others suffer accidents or contract diseases and die when they are still young.

We know that we are eternal; all that happens is that every one of us, every man and woman, leaves the material, physical body at a predetermined time. After death, the human body is destined to return to the cycle of nature, to decay, turn into ashes, become soil. This path is predetermined for all plants, trees, and animals alike. Protected forests are home to trees that are permitted to die natural deaths, to rot where they fall, in time to turn into humus and form the basis of new, healthy life.

We are familiar with the trees that uplift our spirits and enchant all of nature with their blossom in the spring, and tempt us with delicious fruits in the summer. We are familiar with fruit plantations, olive groves, meadow orchards that merge quite naturally with the landscape. These trees are rooted in soils with a stable humus layer on which a wide variety of wild flowers and herbs can flourish and which provide a habitat for butterflies, insects and wild animals. We are familiar with commercial forests planted by human hand, with trees standing neatly rank and file as if measured with a ruler. Planted soldiers is the term used by the Mapuche, the indigenous people of Chile, to describe the industrial eucalyptus and pine plantations encroaching on their land.

The vast majority of plantations are not forests, but rather fields of trees that were not permitted to choose this form of existence for themselves; they are monocultures that are susceptible to disease and live weak, timid lives. The inhabitants refer to green deserts when talking about the paper and pulp production for which the rain forests were felled. These industrial facilities are planted with fast-growing, nowadays often genetically manipulated trees, which are felled after a few years when they have reached around 80% of their mature height. Genetic engineering can furnish trees with attributes which they don’t have by nature. Trees grown in laboratories are

Wars have always had horrendous consequences for trees and forests. During the Vietnam War from 1962 until 1971, the American military flew over the woods and forests of Vietnam and sprayed them with a herbicide that became known as Agent Orange. Their intention was to defoliate forests, destroy crop plants in order to cut off food supplies to their opponents, and take away the concealment and safety which the forests gave to enemy soldiers. Agent Orange did what it was meant to do. The consequence: dead, defoliated trees, contaminated, infertile soil, perplexity among the Earth’s population as to how the global community can prevent such barbaric acts in the future. Decades after these crimes, both the environment and the populations affected are haunted by horror, disease and death. The soil is toxic; the women who live there give birth to large numbers of crippled, disabled children. It cannot be foreseen how long these toxins will remain in the soil and in the bodies of humans and animals

As incomprehensible as it seems, this poison was used again just recently. Representatives of major companies sprayed Agent Orange over large expanses of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil in order to clear the vegetation away from high-voltage power lines. Truly scandalous. Who allowed this to happen? Who has the power to prevent such heinous acts? Who profits from the use of all these destructive chemicals? Quite often, there are close ties between business interests and politics. Are the people of the Earth really unable to stop the perpetration of atrocities against fellow human beings, animals, and all of nature? Many believe that we have the potential and are actually in the process of destroying ourselves because we do not realize that we need the natural resources provided by Mother Earth to survive. If humankind destroys itself, nature can cope perfectly well without us since it is able to regenerate from within. The forests are the source of all life.