The Wonderful World of Trees and Treehugging
by Wendy Priesnitz
“Trees are wonderful things. They provide
shade, hold soil, water, carbon and nutrients, and provide habitat for
innumerable species. Our ancient ancestors lived in and among trees, and both
benefitted. Is there still a primal connection between humans and trees, and do
we still benefit from being among them? The answer is yes. Studies have shown
that we are psychologically healthier when we spend time around trees and in
woods.” ~Harv “Ponderosa”
Teitelbaum
Heart, Lungs and Soul of the City
 Urban trees have a terrible life. Tall trucks bash them, utility companies dig
up their roots and trim back their branches, high-density developments squeeze
them out, insurers hate them. However, trees have real benefits for cities and
their occupants. They
provide cleaner air, help reduce noise, provide flash flood protection, and can
actually reduce air temperature. They can also enhance our emotional and
physical well-being. According to behavioral scientist Roger Ulrich, physical
signs of stress such as pulse rates and muscle tension lower within four minutes
of a stressed person moving into leafy surroundings.
New York City’s parks department has found that, including their ability to
combat pollution and add real estate value, the city’s street trees provide an
annual benefit of about $122 million, with the city receiving $5.60 in benefits
for every dollar spent on trees. In Salem, Oregon, there is a Greenways
Ordinance, which is designed to help preserve salmon habitat. In recognizing
trees’ role in reducing the amount of impervious surface area in the city,
planning officials have also realized that shading parking lots reduces the
temperature of stormwater runoff so it doesn’t harm aquatic life.
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a
tree.
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.
~Ogden
Nash, Song of the Open Road
 Mitigating Climate Change
Trees also have benefits to the broader environment. Over the last 300
years or so, the activities of humans (such as the burning of fossil fuels and
vegetation clearing) have increased the concentration of
greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, helping to create our
current climate change emergency.
Planting trees can help offset that by removing carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it as carbon in the plant material and
the surrounding soil. Unfortunately, when forests are clearcut, and if the wood from those trees is burnt or
allowed to decay, much of that carbon is released back into the atmosphere. But
when it is used for other purposes, such as building houses or furniture, the carbon remains locked up in
the timber for the life of the product.
Trees
Communicate With Each Other
 Aside from destroying animal and bird habitat and
releasing carbon, clearcutting is also hard on the trees and forests
themselves. University of British Columbia ecologist Suzanne Simard tells us
that trees “converse” with each other, communicating their needs and sending
each other nutrients via a network of latticed fungi buried in the soil and
connecting one root system with another. She has found that these symbiotic
fungal networks help trees send warning signals about environmental change
and transfer their nutrients to neighboring plants before they die.
Simard
and her students have also discovered that forests have what they call “mother
trees,” which are the biggest, oldest trees. They are the most connected to
other trees in their forests and can even nurture their own kin. The
importance of these hub trees is a good argument in favor of sustainable
forestry, rather than clearcutting of old growth. Nevertheless, while
Simard warns that these communication networks are being disrupted by
environmental threats such as climate change, pests like pine beetle infestations, and
logging, she is optimistic that the conversations among trees will continue.
What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror
reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another. ~Mahatma Gandhi
Enlightenment and Health From the Trees
Many people feel a strong personal kinship toward trees and some ancient cultures
believed humans actually came from trees. 
There is no doubt that spiritual insight and personal transformation can be achieved through close
contact with trees. Many an inspiration is born while meditating, praying,
singing, or writing beneath a tree. Perhaps the most famous enlightenment ever
came while the Buddha was sitting under the bodhi tree.
Both the ancient Celts and Native Americans believed that trees reaching for the
sky united the earth with the spirit world. They believed trees communicated
with the moon and the stars and were forewarned of any oncoming dangers by the
wind. Trees, in turn, would send those warnings and other heavenly messages down
to the earth through their roots. The “wish trees” of northern Europe are
successors to ancient pagan tree shrines where people once appealed to the
spirit beings or devas for help in solving problems.
In North America, trees are also an integral part of the rich relationship with
Nature that the indigenous peoples of the Northwest Coast First Nations have
evolved over thousands of years. They carve totem poles from the native,
densely-grained ancient western red cedars. Unfortunately, during the past
century, industrial logging has dramatically reduced the number of these trees
that are suitable for totem pole carving.
 In
the 1980s, the head of Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and
Fisheries coined the term “shinrin-yoku” to refer to the way people
are impacted by being in forests. That concept has been popularized in the
West as “forest bathing.” Research has shown that walking in a forest can
significantly lower blood pressure, promote relaxation, increase energy
levels, and create feelings of happiness, while improving attention and
concentration. At least one study demonstrated that spending three days in a
forest can improve the immune system for up to seven days.
Resources for Healing
Since ancient times, trees have offered resources for healing. They have not
only yielded medicines from their leaves, roots, bark, wood, and fruit, but have
also supplied a source of energy on which many indigenous healing
traditions rely. For thousands of years, trees of various sorts have been used to make infusions,
decoctions, poultices, ointments, and tonics to heal both humans and domestic
animals. Even modern-day pharmaceutical companies include parts of trees in some
of their drugs and treatments. For instance, medical researchers have found the dried bark and
needles of the Pacific yew to contain taxol, an anti-cancer compound that has
been judged effective in treating ovarian cancers.
The Ultimate Treehouse
 People of all ages are fascinated by treehouses.
Suspended in a treetop, far above the ground and other people, a treehouse can
be a fun hideout for kids and a welcome hideaway for adults. There are even
treehouses available to rent as vacation cottages.
Perhaps the most lavish treehouse is
owned by the Duchess of Northumberland in northeastern England. Sitting high in
the branches of 16 trees, the five-room, 6,000 square-foot structure is part of
a transformation of Alnwick Castle’s grounds into a fantasy garden. The castle
is already famous as the setting for Hogwarts School in the Harry Potter films.
“Regardless of their ability, children should be encouraged to get outdoors and
appreciate nature,” says Lady Jane Percy, the energetic young duchess whose
husband’s family have resided at Alnwick since the early 14th century. The
duchess was apparently an avid tree climber as a child and was inspired to
construct her house in the trees by a
survey which found that one-third of children aren’t allowed to climb trees.
The tree I had in the garden as a child,
my beech tree, I used to climb up there and spend hours. I took my homework
up there, my books, I went up there if I was sad, and it just felt very good
to be up there among the green leaves and the birds and the sky. ~Jane
Goodall
Embracing Protection
 Given all the benefits we receive from trees, it’s our duty to protect them,
whether that’s by physically preventing them from being cut down or by carefully
stewarding the use of the products made from them, like wood and paper.
The term
“treehugger” – originally derogatory – came from the Chipko movement, a group of
villagers in India who prevented commercial logging by hugging trees. Some of
the largest protests have been to protect the old growth temperate rainforests
in coastal British Columbia from clearcutting. And one of the main protestors is
a grandmother named Betty Krawczyk (born 1928) who was first arrested with
almost 90 others during the notorious 1993 Clayoquot Sound demonstration
against MacMillan Bloedel on Vancouver Island.
Tree sitting is another tree protection tactic. For 738 days in the 1990s, Julia
Butterfly Hill lived in the canopy of an ancient redwood tree called Luna to
help raise awareness of the plight of ancient forests. That led to protection of
the 1,000 year-old tree and the creation of a three-acre buffer zone around its home
in Stafford, California.
Planting trees and combating deforestation is the focus of a Kenyan woman named
Wangari Maathai who founded the Green Belt Movement to organize poor women to
plant trees. Since 1977, the movement has planted over 30 million trees and over 30,000
women have been trained in forestry, food processing, bee-keeping, and other trades.
Maathai received the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the movement.
So, whether they are providing shade, energy,
medicine, enlightment, or fun; holding soil, water, carbon and nutrients; or
providing habitat for humans and other species, trees are invaluable to life
on earth. And we should be doing everything we can to protect them for
future generations.
Wendy
Priesnitz is the founding editor of Natural Life Magazine, an author and
journalist with over 45 years of experience. This article was first
published in 2007 as part of a photo essay in Natural Life Magazine, and
updated in 2018.
Photos (c) Shutterstock and photographers
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