Is environmental tree planting really beneficial with no harm? These impacts you need to know
Nowadays, regarding the protection of the ecological environment and natural resources, people seem to have transformed the concept of “planting greenery on Arbor Day” into “not only planting trees but also protecting greenery.” There are calls to gradually change the calculation of “forest coverage rate” to the calculation of “wild grass coverage rate.” When many people mention environmental protection, they think of planting trees, yet they forget that in China today, three kinds of trees are becoming the nemesis of other trees……
Because planting fast-growing eucalyptus has obvious economic benefits, it was once widely planted in South China, but the “eucalyptus is harmful” theory has always been controversial.
When many people mention environmental protection, they think of planting trees. In the eyes of many people, planting trees has become synonymous with participating in environmental protection, or rather the most convenient and infallible method. Therefore, more than 30 years ago, our country established “Arbor Day.”
I have been paying attention to environmental protection for less than 20 years. In 2008, after publishing “A Country Without Big Trees,” I increasingly became “against the tide.” At first, I only opposed blindly planting trees and called on everyone to protect trees and preserve natural forests. Later, I simply wanted to oppose “Arbor Day” and called for Arbor Day to be renamed “Tree Protection Day.” Now, I want to go further and call on China to change the calculation of “forest coverage rate” to the calculation of “wild grass coverage rate.”
1. In China today, three kinds of trees are becoming the nemesis of other trees
If we have carefully observed a tree, we will find that trees have a very prominent characteristic: they place extreme importance on reproducing offspring. Almost every tree produces thousands upon thousands of fruits every year. Once they mature, they hurriedly fall to the ground, seeking opportunities to sprout and begin new life.
Because they are very clear that the probability of actually sprouting and growing up is infinitesimal. They may at any time become food for cattle and sheep, food for insects, or “food” for viruses.
However, what trees that are good at reproducing offspring fear most is not cattle, sheep, insects, or viruses. What they fear most is human axes and blades, humans setting fires to burn mountains, and humans' single-minded replacement of them in pursuit of economic interests.
In China today, there are three kinds of trees that are becoming the nemesis of other trees.
One is called poplar, mainly growing in the north; one is called Chinese fir, mainly growing in the south; and another is called eucalyptus, also mainly growing in the south.
Not long ago, I had just returned to my hometown. Seeing that all three brothers had rarely come back together, my father took us up the mountain and went over the trees he had planted over the past ten years for the fifth time.
He walked and talked, saying that these dozen or so trees were planted by him ten years ago and were Chinese firs. Another small patch was planted by him last year and was also Chinese firs. There was also a large patch, planted after converting the original orange orchard. Oranges had not been selling well recently, so he planned to give them up and plant all Chinese firs.
The three of us brothers followed behind uneasily. We were not interested in these trees. We were all thinking about how to make him not plant Chinese firs and not let the entire village have only one kind of tree: Chinese firs.
Finally, we reached the top of a small hill, where there still remained a dozen or so pine trees and a dozen or so other broadleaf miscellaneous trees.
This is a common village in the hilly area of northern Fujian. This is a common family in northern Fujian. This is the most common “Chinese fir movement” in northern Fujian.
This “Chinese fir movement” involves almost every peasant family. The reason is that the peasants are all preparing to go to the cities to work and live. Under such circumstances, farmland has no choice but to lie fallow. For the plots too fertile to bear abandoning, they plant some vegetables and some seedlings, which can bring a little income. Rice is no longer planted; everyone buys rice transported from other places in the city.
Of the land around the village, what used to be best was the fields; now of course it is the mountains. The former “herbaceous economy” dominated by rice paddies and vegetables has now slowly shifted to a “woody economy” dominated by Chinese chestnuts, Chinese firs, and fruit trees. As a result, the value of mountain land has risen markedly.
The funniest thing is those pine trees. Thirty years ago, pine trees were still everyone's darling, competed over for planting, but today they have become worthless things people discard. The peasants first cut a ring around the base of the pine trees so that the trees cannot transport nutrients from the roots up to the treetops through the bark. Then the trees turn yellow, and they can be felled as a matter of course on the excuse that they are sick.
Before the pine tree falls, beside it a small Chinese fir has already been planted, ambitiously seizing sunlight and gaining the right to life.
Chinese firs are actually not that easy to grow. In the first two or three years, they still need weeding, fertilizing, and pesticide spraying to prevent miscellaneous trees and wild grass from overwhelming them and kudzu vines and termites from killing them. But after three years, the Chinese firs have grown to two or three meters tall and are basically able to survive independently. At this point, the peasants can confidently and boldly work in the city all year round. If they can be sufficiently at ease, they can simply wait until 20 years later to return to the village, apply for a felling permit, and sell these Chinese firs. In between, there is almost nothing to worry about.
Chinese fir can be said to be the tree species that best fits the economics of peasants going to the city. Over the past 10 years, they have admirably shouldered the mission of the times.
The three of us almost unanimously asked whether these miscellaneous trees and pine trees could be left uncut. We do not want Chinese firs; let this small patch remain.
Father glanced at us somewhat surprised and said, impossible. Everyone is seizing the mountain. If I do not act today, others will act tomorrow. Whoever seizes it owns it; it is impossible to leave it.
We could say nothing more and returned home silently.
In 2008, when I wrote “A Country Without Big Trees,” what was popular in the village was still orange trees. Orange trees generally grow only at the foot of the mountains, so from the mountainside to the mountaintop, natural and semi-natural forests still remained. But now, in the entire village, there are hardly a few natural miscellaneous trees left.
Without miscellaneous trees and with only Chinese firs, the wild animals have all disappeared. This is the most terrifying “habitat destruction” in ecology. Without miscellaneous trees, water cannot be conserved either, because the entire forest has only one kind of tree root, which simply cannot allow heavy rain to be slowly absorbed into the soil. If the rain is heavier, it can also easily cause landslides. In addition, without miscellaneous trees, the entire village looks utterly devoid of ecological beauty.
Although in the forestry bureau's statistical data, the forest coverage rate of northern Fujian has not declined at all and still remains above 80%, anyone with even a tiny bit of ecological common sense knows that the forest quality of northern Fujian has declined to less than 10% of what it originally was.
Northern Fujian is a microcosm of southern China. Jiangxi is also experiencing the “Chinese fir movement” and “tea tree movement.” Guangdong and Guangxi, southern Fujian and southern Jiangxi, already experienced the “eucalyptus movement” many years ago. The natural forest ecosystems in many places in the south have been ruthlessly replaced by these few kinds of trees.
If you go to the Leizhou Peninsula and take a look, you will know that more than 90% of the trees on the Leizhou Peninsula are eucalyptus. If you go to the Qinzhou and Fangchenggang areas of Guangxi and take a look, you will know that more than 90% of the trees in these places are also already eucalyptus.
2. Misunderstandings in building “ecological forests”
China has several famous “shelterbelts”: the Three-North Shelterbelt, the Yangtze River Shelterbelt, and the coastal shelterbelt. From today's perspective, when we built these shelterbelts, there were still quite a few misunderstandings in our understanding.
The Three-North Shelterbelt is almost entirely planted with poplars. In the Yangtze River Shelterbelt, many natural forests are still preserved in the upper reaches, while along both banks of the river in the middle and lower reaches, what is planted is basically all poplars. As for the coastal shelterbelt, along the coastline north of the Yangtze River, the “Yang family army” also reigns supreme; south of the Yangtze River, the most important coastal ecosystems, such as mangrove forests and casuarina forests, have been shattered to pieces in China's current wave of real estate development, port development, and industrial park development.
In order to control smog, in 2011 Beijing made a resolute decision to create 3 million mu of new “forest” throughout the entire city. With no land available, it took land from agriculture, converted farmland into forest land, and transformed peasants into forest rangers and afforestation workers. But the costs and the price of doing so were extremely high, with almost every mu of forest costing more than 100,000 yuan. To this end, Beijing nearly bought out all the seedlings in nurseries in the Hebei and Shandong areas.
But if everyone thinks about it, they will understand: the seedlings originally cultivated for “urban greening” - what kind of trees would they be? Nothing more than poplars, pagoda trees, and willows, these “urban resident trees” that humans have doted on for hundreds and thousands of years. Among them, of course, poplars are the majority.
The Three-North Shelterbelt mentioned above is almost entirely planted with poplars. Never mind whether sandy land and grasslands need trees planted at all; even if trees really did need to be planted, how could only poplars be planted? Building a shelterbelt is not for economic benefit but for ecological protection, and the core principle of ecological protection is to let local tree species grow freely. The basic principle of ecological protection is to interfere as little as possible with nature's “self-repair capacity” and let local weeds and wild trees undergo natural succession. In this way, no water is consumed, no fertilizer is needed, and no pesticides need to be sprayed.
In order to plant 3 million mu of trees, Beijing even leveled the land. Regarding this, a forestry worker named Zhang Xiang who came from the Northeast said: “In the forests of our Northeast, there are many ‘water’ (slightly larger pools and pits of water in the forest). These water can accumulate rainwater at ordinary times, so that once it rains heavily, the rainwater will be broken down and stored by these water and remain in the forest, not forming floods, and then become the best supplement for streams or groundwater. These water have other benefits too. For example, they can give animals a place to drink water. Forest frogs and the like can also lay eggs in them. When the sun shines on them at ordinary times, the water vapor they evaporate also brings coolness. Therefore, inside forest land, it is best for it to be uneven with pits and hollows. This is also an excellent protection for biodiversity.”
Common sense that even a forestry worker can state so clearly, yet in the eyes of forestry experts working to “protect ecology and control smog,” it seems not even worth observing and acknowledging.
On the North China Plain, smog now runs rampant. One major reason is that large numbers of natural wetlands, natural rivers, and natural forests have disappeared; they have all turned into poplar forests.
Actually, if poplars absolutely must be planted, then after planting, as long as the other weeds and wild trees growing beneath the forest are no longer cleared away, the poplar forest may also slowly succeed into a semi-natural ecosystem, conserving water, producing water, purifying the air, and providing excellent survival habitat for local wild mammals, birds, insects, amphibians, and reptiles.
Unfortunately, we insist on clearing away all other organisms beneath the poplar forest. Some say it is to prevent fire, and some say it is to let the poplars grow better. Perhaps the managers have all forgotten that what we want is not poplars; what we want is a forest ecosystem.