A big tree is not just a big tree. It is an entire neighbourhood. The human equivalent would be a residential skyscraper.
Imagine if someone cut one of them down just because harvesting big buildings was profitable.
Where would the people that live there go? Or the people that work there?
When we see a big tree, or any tree, going down the highway on the back of a truck we should say,
"There goes the neighbourhood".
Each old growth tree is a community of millions of different organisms large and small.
Some can't live anywhere else.
Where are they to go?
A recent photo taken on Vancouver Island of a single, large sitka spruce trunk on a logging truck went viral.
The large tree looks like it could be about 800 years old, give or take 200 years.
Many people that saw the photo were shocked that we still do this kind of thing when so much of the ancient forest is gone.
Over 90% of the oldest and best stands have already been logged in BC. It makes one think they will not be satisfied until they get as close to 100% of the big trees as possible.
As soon as possible.
One day we will view decimating entire ancient forest communities that have thrived harmoniously for 10,000 years as barbaric and tragically old fashioned.
We will look into how they got away with replacing the great mass of 10,000 year old forest with tree farms on 80 year rotations, with the big trees never to be seen again outside of small parks and areas they haven't ruthlessly exploited yet.
That day of reckoning may be coming sooner than they think if the reaction to the viral photo of that formerly beautiful spruce tree on the back of a logging truck is any indication.
It can't come soon enough for a great many, and growing, number of us.
