The word "deforestation" brings up thoughts of the Amazon River basin in Brazil or the Congo River basin in Africa. These huge tropical rainforests are sometimes called the lungs of the earth, and are extremely important. They are in grave danger.
A few decades back our family went with a building team from El Dorado First Baptist Church and Three Creeks Baptist Church to central Brazil. The final leg of the journey involved flying from the town from Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas, over dense rainforest to our destination. I was sitting up front near the co-pilot. I pointed toward a line of black clouds. Thunderstorms? I asked him.
"Just smoke from cattle ranchers burning the forest," he replied.
That was several years back; deforestation is still taking place in Brazil. The recent United Nations Climate Change Conference in Scotland calls for that practice to be eliminated, and Brazil has agreed. However, based on the president of Brazil's pro-clearcutting actions over several years, few expect him to hold to the agreement.
Beyond tropical rainforests, deforestation is occurring in cities and towns in the Natural State. We don't have landscaping or tree ordinances in El Dorado, so you can do just about anything with your property. Almost all of our parking lots are as blank as you can get them.
Several studies compare landscaped parking lots with trees to parking lots without them; the landscaped lots had 25 percent more customers than the non-landscaped lots. Urban designer Dan Burder estimates that over its life a single downtown street tree has $90,000 in direct benefits, and on a residential street with trees, houses sell for an average of 10 percent more than those on a street without trees.
It must be that El Dorado and most Arkansas cities don't understand basic economics, because we whack away as if trees just get in the way.
El Dorado has a relatively new high school, a gorgeous well-planned series of interconnected buildings. However, the site, a significant piece of property, has been scraped clean. It has one tree in front of the school.
Hugh Goodwin Elementary, our award-winning Blue Ribbon School, cut down a large pin oak and over-trimmed two others. I will give them credit for planting one tree in front. But it seems the education community is unaware of the value of trees, since they cut down three in front of the headquarters building; trees I had planted.
Let me put my money where my mouth is: I will make a $500 donation to the El Dorado School District if it will use it to plant trees on the high school property. If you donate $50, that's enough to plant a tree on any public property in the state. Send me your commitment of how many dollars you will donate and where, and I will make sure those dollars buy trees.
We must develop a pro-tree attitude and refrain from clearing land when we develop. If you remove a significant tree from your property you reduce its value; that's not environmentalist Richard speaking, but Realtors and the IRS.
The history of our state is rampant with deforestation, as the great east Arkansas flood plain of the Mississippi was essentially clear-cut and huge swamps drained. That made fertile land available for farming, but instead of 95 percent deforestation, couldn't we have saved more? My uncle lived and farmed in the boot heel of Missouri, and he commented that at least 25 percent of the land cleared there was less than quality farm land.
We think if China, India, and Brazil would get their acts together, we could get global warming under control. However, the problem is worldwide, and the cumulative destruction of forests-- whether they were cut down and eliminated 100 years ago or last year--created the problem.
The earth has lost a huge percentage of its tree cover, and continues to lose trees at an alarming rate. A study a few years back estimated eight trees are cut down for every one planted.
Cutting down trees, littering highways, and adding waste to our streams and oceans are parts of the same problem. We must have the inner desire to consider trees an integral part of our environment. As I look at our town and others in the state, I see empty lots and yards where a tree would make a difference.
However, we do have some excellent examples of landscaping with trees here in El Dorado. The next time you are downtown, look at the block north of the courthouse where Murphy USA, the former Murphy Oil Building, and the Newton Museum are located. What if the rest of our town looked even close to the way that block looks?
We're gaining on trees and landscaping in downtown El Dorado (over 1,000 downtown trees have been planted). The city once won a national award for the best Main Street Downtown, and one of the factors the judges commented on was the great tree canopy.
If we can just keep our mayor and public works director from whacking them, maybe our downtown can continue to be an example of how urban tree planting can beautify as well as cut utility costs.
Just think: If everyone who reads this column would plant one tree, what a difference it would make.
Plant a tree!
Email Richard Mason at richard@gibraltarenergy.com.