My tree, my right to chop it down

Noticed, late on Friday afternoon: 1) several tree removal trucks near a New Westminster apartment building, the intent clearly that of the annihilation of a copse of mature trees; and 2) a chainsaw-wielding man at a Washington state beach cottage delimbing a stately birch that was overstepping its boundaries.

And, I thought, this is the way things should be. Trees need to be taught a thing or two, like they can't just grow any which way they want without repercussions.

Not a popular sentiment, by most accounts, especially here in the land of the greens, where dogs and cedars and pop-up protesters trump all when it comes to societal sentiment.

Because, let's face it, who doesn't love a tree? Trees are pretty, and provide nooks for birds' nests and strong ledges for tree forts. Their 50 shades of green are like no other, hues that only nature could create and in whose shadow man must forever feel the lesser artist.

Trees are the lungs of the earth, prevent erosion and inspire us with their majesty, their stoic survival in the face of war and pestilence and logging companies.

Perhaps we so revere our trees, chaining ourselves to them and defending their honour, hollow and otherwise, because they remind us of life, their roots planted deep in history, their branches reaching out to the world.

Perhaps it is why we preserve sainthood for all that is bark and branch, leaf and needle, whether it's a thousand-year-old primordial cedar lording over a foggy Vancouver Island cove or a garden-centre sapling planted in an urban backyard and coddled into bearing fruit.

Trees. We stand in awe of their beauty and utility, their utter magnificence.

But trees aren't the boss of us. Sometimes, we need to fell them, for firewood or to build a house or because we're in the resource business, or because they're dangerous or diseased or just plain ugly. Sometimes, they stand in the way of progress.

Sometimes, people, we forget that trees are just trees. They grow, they fall down, get chopped up or die of old age, millions of them all around us, and have for thousands of years, a cycle that begins anew with each seed floating on the wind.

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My tree, my right to chop it down