Troubled Time for Many Trees

from the Quad City Times......

By Alma Gaul Sunday, November 05, 2006

The drive along Lake Superior’s north shore is one of the calendar pages of American scenery, with water on one side and evergreens and intermixed with white birch on the other.
But as we drove through this Minnesota landscape in September, I was troubled to see what apparently was mile after mile of declining birch trees, their limbs truncated and barren of leaves.Another tree in peril. I feel as though everywhere I turn I am besieged by stories of trees in peril.Close to home are the ash trees, threatened by the emerald ash borer that has been blamed for the loss of more than 20 million trees in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland and Ontario, Canada.Borers were discovered this summer in a Chicago suburb and although state and federal task forces are doing everything they can to stop the insects’ advance, it may be inevitable that it eventually makes its way here, into Illinois and Iowa.Then there are the aspens.Oh my gosh — have you ever seen their quaking yellow leaves in the mountains of Colorado in the fall? But now huge stands of these trees are dying, possibly because of stress brought on by recent droughts and the subsequent invasion of predatory organisms. What is of particular concern to foresters is that generally an aspen’s roots will regenerate, but now they seem to be dying, too.Since the mid-’90s, a fungus that spreads in windblown rain has killed more than a million oak trees in California. There is no known cure.And that’s not all.Hemlocks are threatened by the woody adelgid; sugar maples by rising temperatures; and fir, spruce and pine trees by various bark beetles.This country has a great diversity of tree species, but they’re getting picked off.Why do I bring this up on an otherwise beautiful Sunday morning? (All mornings are beautiful.)Mainly, just so you know.So you know that something we take for granted and that provides for life as we know it — beauty, shade, lumber, food, bird and animal habitat, oxygen — should not be taken for granted.So when there is a public decision to be made about protection of natural areas with trees — Davenport’s Credit Island? — you can speak up for protection.So when you plant trees in your own landscape, you choose a diversity of species.So if someone suggests spending tax dollars to research cures or stem the spread of pests, you’ll know there is a need.So when someone calls you a “tree hugger” — a term usually lobbed in a derisive or mocking manner — you can say, “Yes I am. Why aren’t you?”