By Liliana Usvat
How many living things that were alive 1000 or 2000 years ago are still alive today?
Trees are the only living things that could have been alive long time ago and that can be still alive today.
And we as society use them as source of energy… source of income and countries and companies actually praise themselves and plan how much income they make at the expense of the forest destruction. Or banks are directing funds toward forest destruction or logging. Even though the bank as institution is younger that some of these trees.
Sweden The world’s oldest known living tree sprouted sometime during the last Ice Age, roughly 9,550 years ago. This 16-foot spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden may look more like a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, but don’t be fooled: this little guy’s root system got started back when the British Isles were still connected to Europe by an ice bridge.
USA Methuselah, a bristlecone pine tree from California’s White Mountains, is thought to be almost 5,000 years old—and the oldest non-clonal tree in the world. The exact location of the gnarled, twisted Methuselah is a Forest Service secret, for its protection (that might not be it above). In 1964, a slightly older tree by the name of Prometheus was accidentally felled by a scientist who didn’t realize the tree was as old as it was.
Iran The Zoroastrian Sarv, a tree in central Iran, is an Iranian National Monument. The 4,000-year-old cypress took root right about the time ancient people in Central Asia were inventing wheels with spokes, and over the course of its long life, witnessed the advent of modern human civilization.
Chile Fitzroya Cupressoides, a type of tall, skinny evergreen in the Andes Mountains, are some of the oldest trees in the world. Known commonly as the Alerce, many of these soaring evergreens have been logged in the last two hundred years, but scientists have been tracking and protecting one specific tree, which is thought to be more than 3,600 years old.
Here are some sample of last century human destruction of the old trees.
Do we have the right to leave the future generations without entire forests that exist now? For the profit of a government or a person or a company? There were forest that existed before some states were coming into existence. And if we would not use our technology to destroy them would exist after the states would cease to exist.
The impact of human society have already changed the environment in a measurable way.
The summer temperatures are much higher that the would have been in areas where in the past have been forests.
What if we would spend the money we spend on weapons and wars on planting trees and forests and the plants research? Is there a chance that the people would live better if we would do that?
I read somewhere that the ability of a seed to penetrate the earth is so big that some societies in the past used it as source of energy to produce light. Apparently this is a lost technology. What if we would use the school system and the research ability of our generation to rediscover some of these technologies?
The big discoveries were done by observing nature. It is not time to start teaching the children to imagine new things by observing nature? We should live them forest and an unspoiled nature to observe.
Blog 99-365
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- Searching for Methuselah (photosbywisdom.wordpress.com)
- Bristlecone Pines : The Oldest Trees On Earth (mannaismayaadventure.com)
- Bristlecone Pines – The Oldest Trees on Earth (coolcrack.com)
- The World’s Tallest, Largest and Oldest Trees (naturalhistorywanderings.com)
- The Bristlecone’s Fate (audiovision.scpr.org)
- Shawnee National Forest (lilianausvat.wordpress.com)
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