Our responsibility to the trees around us
I am an unabashed patriot. I love the mix of customs and cultures in my New England suburb. I love the fabric of my town government with its devoted legislators and crews of citizen-volunteers, and how our mayor shows up to give the heartfelt opening remarks at our library’s student writing contest. And I especially love the great old oaks and sycamores in my neighborhood, and the little pond down the street, home to turtles and frogs and visiting herons. I want this kind of America to live on, for all of our children and grandchildren.
As a country we are about to celebrate our 246th anniversary, and as July 4 nears, I have been thinking about what it means to be an American citizen. Just what are our rights and responsibilities? Some of our citizenship rituals are obvious: We pay taxes, we vote and we volunteer our time to help other Americans live with ease. But there is another sometimes-overlooked practice that we should add to our citizenship agenda: We need to take care of our land the way our land cares for us.
On a plane trip back to Connecticut this spring, it was heartening to see, from my window seat, a sweep of lush green foliage with small towns nestled among the trees. Also heartening was the recent announcement that 10,000 street trees have been planted in the city of New Haven over the last several decades by Urban Resources Initiative, an organization dedicated to maintaining and expanding the city’s tree canopy. Similar efforts are underway in Hartford and Norwalk, among other Connecticut communities.
At the same time, small conservation efforts have cropped up in Hamden, my suburb, that deserve more recognition. For example, a handful of my neighbors observed “No Mow May,” a monthlong moratorium on grass-cutting that gave pollinators (at least in our yard) a chance to feast on carpets of clover and bugleweed. At our town’s high school, the science teacher planted a variety of fruit trees in a grassy interior courtyard. These initiatives matter because, sadly, Hamden has a meager town tree budget. This spring only about three dozen town-funded trees went into the ground, hardly enough to replace the hundreds we’ve lost recently to severe weather, development, disease and old age.
Urban and suburban trees are an essential part of our infrastructure. Scientists have clearly documented how neighborhood trees mitigate global warming, preserve biodiversity, clean toxins from the air and soil, prevent flooding, lower energy costs, reduce crime, and create a beautiful sense of place.
It may take years for strapped towns like Hamden to allocate funds to preserve our green infrastructure. As good citizens, we must not wait for others to take the lead. We can approach this public-sector shortfall as a private-sector opportunity. With our small plots of land to tend, we suburbanites can begin simply by planting just one native tree in our yards, or even donating one to a local school or house of worship.
In his visionary bestselling book “Nature’s Best Hope,” University of Delaware entomologist
Douglas Tallamy describes his brilliant and creative plan for the largest national conservation project ever attempted: the HomeGrown National Park. Tallamy urges those of us who live in the suburbs to work together to intentionally expand native plant habitats to preserve biodiversity, even if it means planting one or two trees at a time. (Since learning of HomeGrown National Park, my husband and I have planted several native trees in our yard, and our next-door neighbors have followed suit with their own lovely garden of native shrubs.) This is a project that counts on civic engagement and asks us to reframe our notions of our rights and responsibilities as American citizens.
The idea of mutual flourishing between the human and natural worlds is hardly new, writes Native American ecologist-botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer in her essay “Maple Nation: A Citizenship Guide.” In fact, Kimmerer’s Anishinaabe culture counts trees as people, the “standing people.” Here in the Northeast, and in Kimmerer’s New York town, where maples outnumber people 100 to 1, the trees shower humans with their gifts: wood, syrup, shade and windbreak. They make soil from leaves, homes for songbirds, and they provide branches for children’s swings.
But more than that, Kimmerer wisely asserts, the maples are citizen-leaders that donate their services, storing carbon and creating oxygen, and make our lives possible. Generosity comes naturally to trees and it should to us, too.
Now, as we celebrate another year as Americans, sustaining one another with all of our wondrous laws and freedoms, our splendid rights and responsibilities, it’s time to ask: What can we do right now to take care of our beautiful land?
Here in the Northeast, where maples outnumber people, the trees shower humans with their gifts: wood, syrup, shade and windbreak.