I've Decided To Keep My Old Growth

A not-so-funny look at what's left of the big old trees

By Michael Murphy

I've sold my last tree.

When I was born, there were about 200 million people in the United States and something like maybe 4 billion trees on public lands in the West. That means I owned 20 trees. So did my dad and my mother, and my brother and each of my cousins. Everybody did. Every American owned 20 trees at the time when I was born.

As I grew older, maybe when I was 15, I didn't know it, but I owned only 16 trees. Everyone else owned only 16 trees, then -- when I was 15 years old. By the time I was 30, my stake was down to nine. Not only was the population growing, but the rate of tree cutting had increased, and we were all down to nine trees. My wife owned nine, and each of my children, and the President, my dentist, and congressman. We each owned nine trees.

I'm not sure exactly when I (and you and each of us) got down to six trees, but the rate of loss was increasing. Chipboard had been invented, and the chain saws had replaced hand saws and had grown bigger and faster, the demand from overseas was in gear, and the trucks were getting larger, and the mills were becoming more efficient. The pace had quickened before most of us even thought about it.

If we lived in timber country, we enjoyed the revenues, not only from jobs, but also in support of our governments. If we lived somewhere else, the benefits were less direct, but they were there. Few of us can quarrel with our dependence on wood products.

Strange thing is, no one ever asked me if I wanted to sell my trees. Or if I did, how much I'd take for them. People just came in and cut them down, and that was it. On top of that, it turns out that most of my life, when I didn't live in timber country, I had to pay taxes to pay people in government to build roads so that people could come in and saw down my trees. I often paid more than I'd ever get out of the deal.

So that's it for me. Now that I'm down to four, maybe five trees, I don't want to sell any more. No more trees. I don't know exactly where they are or what they look like -- probably one is a skinny thing in a swamp, and one is a topped-off snag somewhere, plus a part share in a redwood since there aren't enough left to go around. But I know that at least one of them is a fir, and it's big and old and joins with others of its kind to spread a canopy above a shadow world that cannot be replaced, once it disappears.

Suppose everyone who cared about his or her personal old fir tree decided not to sell. Since the U. S. Forest Service and the BLM and the state forestry departments are only taking care of the trees for us citizens who own them, it is simply a matter of saying to them: "Stop now. I don't want you to sell any more of my old trees. And you can sell my younger trees only if you absolutely guarantee in writing that each will be replaced."

Mothers and fathers could speak on behalf of their young children, most of whom would surely want to keep their individual trees. Children seem to love trees, and the creatures that live in and under them.

That's it. The plan is simple. A call, a note: "I've decided to keep my old-growth tree, and I'll let you sell only the others that will be replaced." Two hundred and sixty million old trees isn't very many to save compared to how many there were, but it's one for every citizen who cares. And it's better than nothing.

As for my fellow citizens who have cut my trees for all these decades, and still cut them, I'm happy to let you continue under the same terms of sale that I offer to the agencies that hold these trees in trust: Don't ask for too many, don't ask for the old ones, don't sell them overseas, and replace those that you take. Is that too much to ask?