“Intentional destruction of mature trees by our municipalities is alarming,” reported Tricia Clarkson, climate columnist with the Peterborough Examiner.

In a June 2022 article in the Peterborough Examiner, Clarkson disclosed that thousands of mature trees were being destroyed along country roads in the Douro-Dummer region that should instead have been just pruned.

Just pruning and leaving older trees intact over removal and planting new trees is the best natural solution to climate change.

William Moomaw, with Yale Environment 360 and lead author of five reports for the IPCC, recommends the practice of proforestation: leaving older and middle-aged forests (and trees) intact because of their superior carbon-sequestration abilities. Preserving existing mature forests and trees more efficiently slows global warming, given that they are already at their full potential in carbon sequestration. Immature trees sequester far less CO₂ than mature trees and newly planted trees (young saplings) take decades to reach their full CO₂ sequestering potential. Why remove what is already working?

Certainly plant a trillion trees (as Thomas Crowther at University of Zurich recommends); not instead but alongside maintaining and protecting our already existing carbon stocks, our current old-growth forests and mature urban forests. This should not be a trade off. We shouldn’t be planting new trees with one hand and cutting mature forests with the other; we need both to remain.

Clarkson points out the need to make a distinction between industrial production forests and natural forests. The lumber industry manages its industrial forests to improve timber production, at the cost of biodiversity (often through clearcutting) and with loss of hub “mother” trees for ecosystem health; cut forests and forest plantations do not perform important ecosystem services (such as carbon sequestration and water balance) that a natural and old-growth forest does. It’s important to recognize the different gifts that trees provide us and the need to balance these, not myopically look to just the obvious (e.g. what we can take from them such as timber). Unfortunately, short-term economic interest too often dominates decisions on forest and tree management. Moomaw recommends that trees and forests in the age range of 70 to 125 years are capable of sequestering the most carbon; unfortunately, 70 years for many species of tree is the perfect size for the sawmill, writes Clarkson.

The Peterborough region had already lost so many mature trees to the derecho windstorm in May 2022. Purposefully cutting down so many mature trees to ‘improve the roads’ is indeed alarming. We will not experience the many gifts rendered by these cut down trees for another thirty to fifty years, when the newly planted trees mature. This gap is a step backward when we should be stepping forward.

The approach of municipalities and counties with tree and forest management should not be restricted to short-term engineering or city planning considerations. Peterborough’s urban forests and the forests of its countryside need to be approached from a more holistic perspective that includes the many other important gifts trees provide us. Do planners and engineers (and even arborists) consider the ecosystem role of urban forests with associated understory and natural vegetation and undisturbed soils (with associated communities) play in land stabilization, erosion protection, flood control, water quality, and air quality—not to mention wildlife habitat and general aesthetics? No organism or system operates in isolation.

Engineers and planners see the natural world in components. Replace one tree with five trees and everything’s fine. Simple. Not so simple. Nature is complex; you can’t solve problems with simple math (ask DFO about how well their compensation programs are doing; their simple equations to address complex natural scenarios have had an abysmal track record). When we compartmentalize—as city engineers and planners appear inclined to do for easeful implementation and maintenance—we run the risk of losing our perspective and understanding of WHY things are the way they are. We lose sight of how connections and relationships drive patterns of change.

You can’t replace a functioning natural ecosystem with trees in a landscaped lawn parkland. You can only replace an ecosystem with an ecosystem. Who is doing that? Not the engineer. Not the planner. Not even the arborist. Certainly not the politician.

Where are the ecologists?

Ecology recognizes the interconnectivity of all things. Ecology is the science that encompasses the larger scope of influence and relationship, the science we need to better understand our place and influence in the world. It is the only science that puts it all into perspective, from the trees to a functioning ecosystem to the water cycle and the global climate.

It’s all connected.

We’re either participating in it or just tagging along behind…