||| FROM B. SADIE BAILEY |||


It hurts my heart to see our Community Tree at the Village Green looking so bad. I didn’t notice how damaged it had become until several weeks ago when I was walking past it. I saw between 8 and 10 people – mostly young adults and teens with several kids in tow – all filing in and climbing up the tree; some near to the very top on the thinner branches. I stood watching the entire spectacle for about 40 minutes, witnessing the complete oblivion and disregard for our rare tree and its non-human inhabitants. I said out loud as the people kept filing in that this is our Community tree, we care about it, don’t hurt it. They ignored me.

Our Town Tree is getting worse abuse each summer. There’s a huge gap at ground level in the North side that goes up a long way, and another, bottom NNW. People can just walk in and start climbing. Many of the bottom branches are dead; snapped off and removed. The roots are getting damaged by all the feet treading on them. You can see bare branches and dying needles through the once-solid curtain of soft cascading needles. There are other gaps and holes higher up the tree where branches have been broken from people shaking them or whatever- with no foliage left to protect from the strong winds we get much of the year, or the drought summers. (See photo).

That tree should be dressed to the ground with green. As more branches die and more gaps appear, the tree will suffer and have less protection against the elements and human-caused damage. It was, and still is, beautiful – the pride of our Village Green. We light it every year for the winter holidays and gather around it for celebrations and events. Some of us remember it being planted when it was so small, years ago.

There’s no sign or plaque saying what kind of tree this is, when it was planted, how rare it is, and why protecting it is important. It’s disheartening to witness how many people blithely go along not recognizing other life forms besides human as Relatives to cherish, honor, respect, and protect.

How about we use some of those tourism tax dollars to pay for some kind of fund to protect our beautiful Town Community tree from further damage, and to pay for an educational plaque? (How’s the Tree Protection Ordinance coming along that San Juan County promised us?)

If locals and tourists have so little regard for a Living Being, maybe it’s time to cordon it off from people climbing all over it. We already have a playground on the Green for the kiddos. Our Community Tree is not a toy, a playground, or an entitlement meant for hundreds or thousands of people to climb all over each year. It was planted for many generations to love, care for, and enjoy. Let’s not ‘love’ it to death.


 

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