Dear Mr. Prime Minister and all those it may concern,
“There is a magic machine that sucks carbon out of the air, costs little, and builds itself. It’s called a tree.”
Those are the words of George Monbiot in a video he and Greta Thunberg made about the climate crisis. Your government has championed tree planting, but do you know what’s better then tree planting: Not cutting trees down. Obviously we have a need for lumber in our society I’m not denying that. But I don’t understand why it’s legal to cut down hundred year old trees.
Hundred year old buildings are often protected as historic sites. Why not trees? For many Indigenous groups trees mean more to them then structures made of bricks and mortar. Seeing forests that are thousands of years old being burned by humans is to them what the fire in the Notre Dame Cathedral was like to many people of European decent.
Besides, forests play such an essential role for planet. According to the Rainforest Alliance around 70% of terrestrial plants and animals live in forests and over 25% of humans rely directly on forests for their livelihoods. The estimated economic value of the world’s forests is 33 trillion dollars US per year. The Rainforest Alliance says that we destroy an estimate 60 acres a minute and that demand only continues to grow. That sort of consumption of the forest is not sustainable. But we need wood, we need pulp, and we need the jobs that the forestry sector creates. Luckily there are so many brilliant people who are working on make forestry sustainable.
We must look closely at the biodiversity and endangered species in a forest before it is cut down. We must adopt low impact forestry techniques that don’t sacrifice all the plants around the trees and emit low levels of carbon. We must respect the wishes and traditional land of Indigenous people. We must protect forestry workers and make sure that the forestry industry is benefiting the local communities over big corporations. We must listen to the experts who have done the work to find solutions to forestry’s problems.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Amelia Penney-Crocker