Environmentalists prohibit planting of tree

[cmccuist]

Funny story from Australia about tree huggers not wanting to embrace this particular tree:

Richard Fernandez, who runs the excellent Belmont Club website, recently took a tour of the old coastal fortifications at the North Head of Sydney Harbour run by the Royal Australian Artillery Association. The local environmentalists don't care for the militaristic memorabilia, or even for flora and fauna associated therewith.

For example, they forbade the planting of a seedling. What had the poor tree done to be blackballed by the eco-crowd? Well, it was a seedling from the Battle of Lone Pine Ridge, the solitary tree round which the Aussies fought the Turk for four bloody days in the carnage of Gallipoli.

The seedling was grown from a pinecone sent home from Gallipoli by Lance Corporal Benjamin Smith of the 3rd Batallion, AIF. To the environmentalists, its offence was that it is a "war-fighting" pinecone.

The Royal Australian Artillery fellows found a way round the prohibition, by surrounding the tree with a huge wooden tub sunk beneath the ground. "The second Battle of the Lone Pine," wrote Richard Fernandez, "was won by technically converting the tree into a potted plant." This showdown between the saps and the sapling was, as Fernandez sees it, "a metaphor for the political divisions in the modern world between those whose concept of a nation is its people and traditions and those who conceive of it as an ecosystem delineated by a United Nations-approved boundary."

[oldE]

"The reason the environmentalists gave was that the Lone Pine seedling would disturb the local habitat. It represented the intrusion of an exogenous or foreign species into an are reserved for indigenous plant life."
I thought I'd add that quote from the article.

I suspect the Australians have seen enough effects of invasive species, (rabbits, rats, sheep, etc.) on their ecosystem and are now quite belligerent about new ones. There might not be much chance of a lone pine seedling running rampant and changing the native forests, but such things went unchecked for decades. (dandilions, anyone?) Potting the plant provides a barrier, both physical and symbolic.
Les

[masraum]

Originally posted by oldE
I suspect the Australians have seen enough effects of invasive species, (rabbits, rats, sheep, etc.) on their ecosystem and are now quite belligerent about new ones.

Huge difference between ridiculous political reasons and valid ecological reasons. Not only do they have feral cats and other things but don't forget those highly poisonous cane toad that was imported.

Cane toads, which have deadly poisonous skin, have turned into Australia’s greatest environmental disaster since they were imported from Hawaii in 1935 in a failed attempt to destroy the native cane beetles in the sugar-growing regions of Queensland.

After stuff like that I'd not want stuff getting imported.

[Joeaksa]

Tree huggers like this need to be chained to the tree and left there for a few eons.

[legion]

Originally posted by Joeaksa
Tree huggers like this need to be chained to the tree and left there for a few eons.

It's recycling when the crows pick at their flesh, right?

[Moneyguy1]

Even here in the Southwest, we have invasive species that are crowding out native flora. One of these is buffelgrass which dries out in the summer and is susceptable to fire more than native plants. The frequescy of brush fires has increased significantly. The Aussies have suffered from a number of ecological missteps including those cute little bunnies.

[ckissick]

We should get the Aussies to take back all their messy Eucalyptus trees from here in California.

[scottmandue]

Originally posted by ckissick
We should get the Aussies to take back all their messy Eucalyptus trees from here in California.

Damn straight! Send them all back!