Who Will Speak for Us?

1,> by Mary Rogers 32 I am a Scarlet Oak. It is not often that we trees have a voice or feel that we will be heard if a voice is found to speak for us. A statement by the chairman of the board of one of the most powerful companies in this country was recently quoted to me, and it got me thinking. He said, "If you look at what those mountains were doing before this strip-mining, they were just growing trees which weren't even being harvested." I'm not in the upper bracket of trees—most foresters would put me in the "cull" group which is about the lowest social status for trees, but it is my home which is being threatened by strip-mining and I care for it. It's true that the harvesting which he seems to think justifies a tree's existence has impoverished my homeland. We did a much better job when we were all working together, oaks, hemlocks, walnut, cherry, maple and poplar; but we scarlet oaks and Virginia pines are carrying on as best we can. I can't think why anyone is so blind as to imagine harvesting is the only purpose of a tree's life, even of a poor specimen such as myself. Take that chairman of the board and me. I have never withdrawn from the earth's capital of living soil one productive square foot. He and his peers by their demands for housing, roads, and facilities have probably withdrawn acres from the living environment by bulldozing and blacktopping, by buildings of steel and concrete, and turned them over to death. My solid wastes, and eventually my whole body, are devoted to enriching the soil without which no life is sustained. His solid wastes are a problem. Many are not even biodegradable. They are becoming a vast drain on the national economy. I breathe out oxygen for energy and life. He breathes out a lot of carbon dioxide. I am only one tree among millions, but with each of us doing our bit the vital air he breathes is made usable. He destroys the air with emissions from smokestacks and cars, and depresses the standard of living (I don't mean moneywealth , I mean health and well being) for countless millions of men, animals and plants. Even people seem to be concerned about this, and are spending a considerable amount of what they seem to value most to restore something which, if they had ever really known the value of earth, air and water as compared with money, they need never have destroyed in the first place. Or take water. I draw it up out of the soil and breathe it out into the air to keep the temperature even. He uses electricity to air condition his buildings, which needs coal, and when the coal is stripped, I go. My roots hold soil, my fallen leaves make humus, and together with the vegetation that fosters, I help hold back and store up water on the hill slopes and let it seep down gradually in a lifegiving stream to the plains and cities where a constant water supply is so vital, and where unrestrained run-off can cause such devastating floods. I don't claim to do the whole job myself, but I do my share along with other trees. What of the chairman of the board? He tinkers with million-dollar dams, stream channelization and flood walls to counteract his destructive work on the forests of the headwaters, and many of his activities so foul the water quality that neither he nor I nor any other living creature can use it in their lifesupport system. Also, most importantly, I can do what no man can do. I use solar energy to make food for animals and birds. Man uses certain animals and birds for his food. Thus there is a chain of survival in nature. My last point may seem trivial, but it has some significance. I know many people have had their hearts lifted by looking at me in my scarlet glory in the fall. I don't know the chairman of the...