Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future by Daniel Lewis

Author:Daniel Lewis [Daniel Lewis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781982164072
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 2024-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

What does it mean for the future of the tree to say that there are nearly thirty million trees left? The IUCN ranks D. crassiflora as Vulnerable, which means that it is likely to become endangered unless the circumstances that have caused it to be in decline can be arrested or reversed. We still don’t have an accurate fix on the genus’s vulnerabilities. IUCN guidelines recommend the conservation status of a species be reassessed every five years, but some 70 percent of existing Diospyros assessments are already five or more years old. The IUCN’s thousands of scientists fight a noble fight to undertake these assessments, but without financial support on a par with a national military budget, it’s difficult to stay current. Conservation biologists point to habitat loss as the primary reason for the decline of vulnerable species, be they plant or animal. The IUCN expects that in the next century, despite aggressive planting and conservation efforts, the tree’s numbers will decline more than 30 percent. Whether or not these numbers can change, in the face of efforts of corporations and other NGOs, as well as government entities, remains to be seen. 28 “We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass,” as Jesse Colin Young of the Youngbloods sang in 1969, on their album Elephant Mountain . Decline and atrophy are the way of the world.

The mighty struggle continues to keep D. crassiflora viable, pushing up toward the sky, still on the planet. Conservationists point out that we need to think about life at the species level, more than the individual level. Of course, saving the individuals means saving the species. In Heart of Darkness , Joseph Conrad’s critique of colonialism in the Congo taps the dark heart of humans: our tendencies toward self-endangering corruptibility. When we have a chance to act inappropriately or self-destructively, we often do. But music is a stupendous cultural force, and a lever of great power, and D. crassiflora has played its part in the symphony. As Plato noted, music is a moral law. It’s generated not from the material but from the heart. The ties between West African ebony and guitars run deeper than the simple wood. Musical instruments act as portals, prompting us to reflect on the connections between physical objects and people. Keeping time is a deep human desire and need. Even the poorest of communities usually have music: a drum, or a drummer, or a singer, and often someone strumming on a guitar, and it can help close the gaps between otherwise unbridgeable chasms.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.