The Joy of Trees

Ancient Forest Alliance campaigner Andrea Inness
 is seen amongst giant sitka spruce and bigleaf maple trees
 as conservationists in British Columbia push for protections on an area of old-growth forests.
  (TJ Watt / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

You shall go out with joy
  and be led forth with peace;
 the mountains and the hills
  will break forth before you;
 there'll be shouts of joy,
  and all the trees of the field
 will clap, will clap their hands!

Voices 884 (from Isaiah 55)
 
I've described Richard Powers' novel The Overstory as a tour-de-force, a marvel of writing which left me in awe. With both complexity and clarity it tells the stories of a number of people whose lives appear disconnected but become intertwined, and the trees which shape their existence.

One of the characters, Olivia, has a near-death experience which awakens her, jolts her both figuratively and literally into a desire to find her life's purpose:

She's alive, and she doesn't know why. She lies awake at night, staring upward, remembering being right next to the only discovery that matters. Life was whispering instructions to her, and she failed to write them down. The prayer thing becomes easier. I'm still. I'm listening, What do you want from me?

The "what do you want from me?" is eventually answered when Olivia join a group of nonviolent radicals who become champions of trees and give themselves "tree" names, Her partner, Nick,  becoming Watchman and Olivia being Maidenhair and they take up residency in a giant redwood for two weeks to block harvesting.Their stay ends up lasting for more than a year, during which they watch as the forest around them is cut by loggers.

I thought of this novel when I read two very Canadian news stories this past week. Researchers in Algonquin Provincial Park have discovered a stand of old-growth trees which are hundreds of years old. One pine is at least 400, and others two and three hundred years-old. On Vancouver Island a stand of ancient trees has been found, some  of which are 800 years-old.



Mike Henry, senior ecologist with the Ancient Forest Exploration and Research Group,
tangles with the 408-year-old tree.  
(Ancient Forest Exploration and Research Group) Toronto Star

The Algonquin trees are in a part of the park open for logging and could be harvested. Many Ontarians are unaware that large areas of the park are unprotected. In B.C. conservationists are pushing to have the 13 hectares of this grove protected as well because it is within a harvesting license. Ken Wu, executive director of the Endangered Ecosystems Alliance says:

It is probably the most spectacular and beautiful old growth forest I’ve ever seen and I’ve explored a lot of old growth forests...old-growth forests are vital to sustaining wildlife, including unique species that can’t live in the second-growth tree plantations that old growth forests are being replaced with... the Mossome Grove is home to not just some of the oldest and grandest trees but also animals and birds such as Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, black bears, wolves, cougars, marbled murrelet, northern goshawk, pygmy owl, screech owl, Vaux’s swift, and long-eared bats.

It's so important to ask "what does God want from us?" when it comes to protecting the forests of our planet, which are vital to our survival. It's more than survival though. Our relationship with trees enriches our lives with the beauty of Creation.