Emerald Ash Borer?
Japanese longhair Beatle?
Black walnut Bud Borers?
Elm Eaters?
It seems that there is a new one every day, here in the USA.
Sadly, the informed treatment by the US Government agencies is that if you remove the trees, you remove the infestations.
Not just the trees that are actually infested -- you must also remove every tree that may be infested some day or some other day.
Now, I am no scientific observer or genius.
I am, in fact, very unscientific as an observer.
However, this treatment tactic is more than a little silly. A variation on "can't see the forest for the trees". You can't save the forests because there are too many trees in the way, or something like that. It can be likened to fighting fire with fire, I suppose. But fires and backfires both leave the survivors with nothing but Scorched Earth.
Is that really a solution?
The USDA has conceded a loss to the Emerald Ash Borer. They quit destroying the trees, and a drive down the roads reveals the death and destruction of the ash trees. Bare branches stretching skyward even as they droop, rot, and fall.
But those bare branches are reaching through the forests and banks of trees. Where the ash are failing, others are thriving -- or at least getting a little stronger; a little taller.
Two counties over, the government is stripping the land, creating erosion and mud flats instead of habitats and farmland, in an effort to stop the spread of the Asian Longhorned Beetle.
They has applied this Scorched Earth treatment in Massachusetts and around Chicago as well.
They have destroyed hundreds of thousands of healthy uninfested trees to remove a few thousand sick ones.
And now there is a new scourge emerging, one that affects what deciduous trees are not vulnerable to the EAB or the ALB. This is the Black Walnut Borer -- and there's also some sort of fungus infection affecting these trees.
Will we have any forests left, once the government gets done 'saving' the trees?
What trees are they saving?
What trees will be left?
What will be left for you?
Japanese longhair Beatle?
Black walnut Bud Borers?
Elm Eaters?
It seems that there is a new one every day, here in the USA.
Sadly, the informed treatment by the US Government agencies is that if you remove the trees, you remove the infestations.
Not just the trees that are actually infested -- you must also remove every tree that may be infested some day or some other day.
Now, I am no scientific observer or genius.
I am, in fact, very unscientific as an observer.
However, this treatment tactic is more than a little silly. A variation on "can't see the forest for the trees". You can't save the forests because there are too many trees in the way, or something like that. It can be likened to fighting fire with fire, I suppose. But fires and backfires both leave the survivors with nothing but Scorched Earth.
Is that really a solution?
The USDA has conceded a loss to the Emerald Ash Borer. They quit destroying the trees, and a drive down the roads reveals the death and destruction of the ash trees. Bare branches stretching skyward even as they droop, rot, and fall.
But those bare branches are reaching through the forests and banks of trees. Where the ash are failing, others are thriving -- or at least getting a little stronger; a little taller.
They has applied this Scorched Earth treatment in Massachusetts and around Chicago as well.
They have destroyed hundreds of thousands of healthy uninfested trees to remove a few thousand sick ones.
And now there is a new scourge emerging, one that affects what deciduous trees are not vulnerable to the EAB or the ALB. This is the Black Walnut Borer -- and there's also some sort of fungus infection affecting these trees.
Will we have any forests left, once the government gets done 'saving' the trees?
What trees are they saving?
What trees will be left?
What will be left for you?
