In this chapter, McCully does an excellent job of making the reader sad and concerned about what has happened to the environment, specifically the trees. I like that she starts and ends off with the importance of the stories and connections to the trees. She begins the chapter with her own personals story and the elderly man’s connection to nature. She also describes some of the reasons why we have connections and depend on trees. For example, she says, “they live beyond our individual lives” and “since they outlive us, they connect us to the future places where they grow. Reading this immediately before going into the ways in which the environment was degraded, made what follows feel especially harsh.
Influenced by what was going on in Europe, the colonists saw the trees as simply a means to make supply lumber and fuel to make a profit. By the end of the 17th century, only one eighth of Europe was still wooded, and they brought the practice of deforestation to America. One of the things that really shocked me was the amount of wood used for shipbuilding and how it drastically depleted the forests. They cut down thousands of the oldest and largest trees for just one ship. These were trees that took hundreds of years to grow and they were just cut down so quickly. McCully also mentions how the deforestation didn’t just take away the trees, but it also wiped out the species dependent on those habitats.
One of the points that I found interesting was that the American colonists thought that wood was “free for the taking.” This brings up the question of whether we have the right to destroy the land we “own.” Technically, the trees were here before us, so why do we have a right to come and knock them down for our own benefit. McCully also touches on an idea that we discussed in class. She said that in regard to wood, they were “bent only upon their present advantage, utterly regardless of prosperity.” Also today, people are selfish and therefore do not prioritize the conservation of the environment. People do not think it is important and continue to destroy and pollute the environment, without thinking about the long term affects that will impact future generations. This shows that the attitudes we have today can be traced all the way back to the attitudes of Europeans prior to American settlement.
Another thing I found interesting was the comparison on the view of trees between the Native Americans and the Europeans. Both used the trees for benefits such as food, fuel, tools, and construction materials. The difference between the Native Americans and Europeans was their attitudes. While the Europeans cut down trees for a profit, the Native Americans had a more spiritual relationship with nature. Even though they exploited the land to an extent, the Native Americans lived long enough on the land to learn about the importance of preserving for future generations. To harm the trees “would have been like killing their elders.” This goes back to showing how important it is to have a connection to the environment. When we talk about ways to help conservation efforts today, it all starts with getting people to care. People do not want to make any efforts to save the environment because they do not feel the connected to it. This is especially a problem in New York City, since there is so little exposure to nature, that it is almost impossible for people to develop that connection on their own. Like McCully concludes, we must do everything we can to share stories about nature and to get people more connected to it in order for there to be any hope for preserving and restoring our natural environment.
