Tree’s Role with an Activist Tone
There is lots going on with a tree, especially a veteran one that passed maturity and begun to senesce. This deterioration indicates overage, usually showing signs of decline, cracks, cavities and hollows. In many urban scenarios, a tree in decline can pose risks to humans, and arborists can condemn such threats and eliminate them in the best way possible.
However, a senescent tree in the right location, away from human hazards, can be very beneficial to the urban forestry, consecutively to us. I lost count of how often I came across trees too old to prune traditionally. You know, that old focus on minimising harm to the tree when trimming, use natural target pruning to make cuts that support compartmentalisation (CODIT) and minimise the infiltration of fungi and other pathogens.
Retaining old living organisms is crucial when considering ecosystem services and how trees interact with the environment. I never thought it was a way to support and promote the role of a tree within the local ecosystem. Much less use various techniques to create and maintain habitat for other living organisms, such as coronet and fracture cuts.
For those who don’t know, coronet and fracture cuts are a step forward in ‘pruning’ techniques where the arborist is trying to mimic nature. Many would say they aren’t pruning, only jagged cuts that represent what naturally would occur to a limb or a trunk after failure.
The idea is simple: promote microhabitats, attract antagonistic fungi, and repel pathogens based on biocontrol agents (BCAs). We could not find any better’ pruning’ option for a senescent tree, where decline is on the way, and the specimen may offer a keystone role to the environment.
Following this idea, I invite you to stretch your mind for a second. Imagine a circle where the senescent tree is in the middle. Draw different circles around this tree, each indicating a living organism. Finally, mark an arrow of each circle toward the tree. This diagram means that resources go from the living organism to the tree and vice-versa.
They all depend on the tree as a food source or habitat. Birds, small predators, apex predators, insects, arboreal mammals, fungi, parasites, epiphytes, bacteria, pathogens, and soil organisms contribute to environmental health, using the tree as a keystone species.
We are arriving at the age of climate awareness (perhaps living amidst right now). Climate scientists warn us of rising temperatures to preserve what we should worry about the most: our diverse ecosystems. Contributing to our local ecosystem couldn’t have been more crucial than today’s date. And we, as arborists, have an essential role in assisting this ecological distress. People can exaggerate in many ways regarding climate change, but we do not need to fall into desperation. Environmental arboriculture is a step-through in understanding how to improve tree health and the overall human population.
I may fiercely believe that we can change the world, and I don’t want to leave an impression that this is the solution to tree care nor that we should change our traditional tree work methods. I only think we can do more than before that wasn’t much explored.
Australia can speak a lot for conservation biology. This country has an immense hollow-dependent fauna, making our job as environmental arborists even more vital if we are willing to contribute to biodiversity. Any other country isn’t different, perhaps with fewer arboreal animals than Australia.
Either way, making human lives better is when nature is only a few metres away from us.
Imagine looking up and seeing different bird flocks flying overhead and perching in the nearby trees with diverse crown colours and endangered species surviving the hurdles without worrying about habitat fragmentation.
Or even parrots munching on seeds and sipping on nectar of colourful flowers, resting in natural hollows of that retained veteran tree. And even possums leaving their craters at night to consume fruits and other goods, owls parting their cavities to hunt their prey, peregrines stooping greatly to defy gravity and that old animal species you haven’t seen for ages and you are happy to know it is still thriving.
All this can only happen if humans become part of the ecosystem services. That said, we must cooperate, if not change our lifestyle to respect such valuable principles beneficial to more human lives. I am not saying to bring back the stone age, neglect our technology, and live primitively.
No. Instead, we must adapt to avoid further damage and embed solid natural values in our culture. Only then, upon generations and generations, we may see the result of less habitat destruction, a change of policy on property development and the old greed. So far, the results have been unsatisfactory, but it doesn’t mean the fight for a more ecological life is yet over.
Thank you for reading!
