Tower and Town, April 2022 (view the full edition)The Power Of TreesImagine yourself walking through a forest, you can hear the tweeting of a bird and the weather is quite warm. Now, imagine yourself walking through a noisy city with cars honking and absolutely no greenery around. Which one sounds nicer? Now, if I tell you that in about 300 years time all trees will vanish completely, what would you feel? 300 years might seem quite far away, but is it fair that we should just let this happen for the next generations? You might be wondering why I'm interested in this topic. Well, my family and I travel a lot and I've seen how many different countries with many different landscapes and nature. Recently, I have come across a lot more deforestation than I have ever seen whilst travelling. During my most recent holiday, I took a helicopter to go to the Alps and I had a clear view of the land below me. Sadly, I could see quite clearly the areas with trees and areas where deforestation had taken place. Seeing it with a birds-eye view really helped me realise how bad it was. After seeing this, I started researching about the importance of trees. This was something that hadn't crossed my mind before and I found some surprising things. For example, trees have been found to enhance mood, improve self-esteem, and lower blood pressure. Research in the Netherlands and Japan indicated that people were more likely to walk or cycle to work if the streets were lined with trees and live longer and feel better as a result. This proves that trees aren't just there to create oxygen for us to be able to survive, but they also help us mentally. I also found that in terms of anxiety and depression, it has been found that those who walked for 15 minutes in a forest experienced less symptoms compared to those walking in an urban setting, and spending time in a forest has also been shown to increase the ability to recover from stress. In 2022, deforestation is happening all around the world for urbanisation, illegal logging, mining, paper, livestock ranching and more. The loss of trees and other vegetation can cause climate change, desertification, soil erosion, fewer crops, flooding, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and a lot of problems for indigenous people. But, most importantly, humans cannot survive without trees. How is this not worrying? Trees absorb and store carbon dioxide. If forests are cleared, or even disturbed, they release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Forest loss and damage is the cause of around 10% of global warming. When forests are cut down, much of that stored carbon is released into the atmosphere again as CO2. This is how deforestation and forest degradation contribute to global warming, so there's simply no way we can fight the climate crisis if we don't stop deforestation. Furthermore, trees aren't only useful to us, trees also support the lives of many large organisms. They are used for food, shelter, and sites for reproduction. Many animals also use trees for resting, nesting and for places from which to hunt or capture prey. Trees are also very important for indigenous people. The isolation of the local and indigenous peoples from the forests is a critical step towards destruction, not only of their cultural identity but also destruction of the forests itself. Indigenous people see forests as their home and have been living there for years. You might be wondering what would happen if all the world's trees disappeared. Let me offer you some key examples. There would be massive extinctions of all groups of organisms (both locally and globally), large amounts of carbon would run into the oceans causing extreme acidification and killing possibly everything but jellyfish, and agricultural systems would likewise swing wildly out of whack. Shade crops like coffee would drastically decline, as would ones that rely on tree-dwelling pollinators. And way more. Even if we can live without trees, who would want to? ET |