Time to make our trees sexy
When I was young I had an imaginary friend named Fred. Fred had a chainsaw and he smoked Bensons. This was the 1980s and toxic masculinity was still just ‘‘being a man’’. As such, little boys who wanted to fit in did things like idolise macho men. The manliest men I’d come across were forestry workers who ran chainsaws with blades so large they looked comical; who smoked ciggies and told bawdy stories; who smelled like BO and warm beer.
Eventually, the hippies with whom my parents associated wore off on me. Men in colourful jerseys sat me on their knees and taught me other approaches to being a man, took me to events with names like ‘‘The Festival of Cooperation’’, read me The Lorax.
And thus Fred retired from chopping down trees and spent the rest of his days drawing pictures in the sand with his chainsaw.
As an adult I’ve continued the work of the Lorax. Now I try to speak for the trees whenever I can. So you can imagine how excited I was when the Government announced it was going to plant a billion trees.
I worry that trees aren’t sexy enough to stimulate public interest. They’re so distant and uncaring that it’s hard to anthropomorphise them to the point that we might care about their future.
Not like birds. They’re just like little dinosaurs. They stand on one leg and do cute human things with their heads. They get up early and create beautiful birdsong. And they’ve got the Bird of the Year competition.
So without further ado, I present the finalists in Johnny Moore’s Tree of the Year 2019.
The ko¯ whai
The ko¯ whai has just come off its glorious flowering period. It has to be one of our most iconic trees with yellow flowers beloved by both the bellbird and fabric makers since way back.
The ra¯ ta¯
I’ve had an ongoing love affair with the ra¯ ta¯ , to the point where my mother-in-law teases me relentlessly. Whenever I’m planting something in my garden she says ‘‘why not put another ra¯ ta¯ in’’ with that sideways grin that lets me know the joke’s on me. Just as the ko¯ whai has finished its display of magnificence, the ra¯ ta¯ is sitting there cocked and ready to go.
The to¯ tara
So strong and girthy when it goes full term. I can see why Ma¯ ori thought it a special tree to make waka from. There’s a lone one out on Banks Peninsula, in Canterbury, which is a sad metaphor to visit if you’ve got time on the weekend.
The cabbage tree
The most undervalued tree in New Zealand has to be the dirty old cabbage tree. Ma¯ ori used its leaves for making rope and sandals. The flowers are out at the moment and they smell magnificent. Sure, the leaves are the bane of dump operators and lawnmowers the country over, but at Tree of the Year HQ we say ‘‘dumps and lawnmowers be damned’’.
Recently, when Brazil’s rainforests were burning and the world was piously going on about the rainforest being ‘‘the lungs of the world’’, one enlightened writer pointed out that it’s easy for us to point fingers when we’ve clear-felled our forests and become rich by doing so. Now it’s time to start replanting. Time to pay it forward for the kids.
Hopefully an event as prestigious as Tree of the Year 2019 will be the launchpad for the forests of the future. So get your votes in.