By Jonathan Victory - 28 May 2012
Young Friends of the Earth Europe is an international organisation made up of all the national Young Friends of the Earth (YFOE) groups throughout Europe. These are groups for young people who are passionate about issues surrounding the environment, energy and social justice. To mark the 5th anniversary of the establishment of this network, YFOEs across Europe were encouraged to plant trees and share photos of their commemoration online. Now if you think tree-planting is something of a namby-pamby gesture then you have clearly never tried planting a tree.
You know how the movie Black Swan was said to have dispelled stereotypes about ballet being a delicate, wimpy sort of activity by showing the extreme physical demands ballet dancers perform under? That was kind of how I felt planting trees as part of Ireland’s commemoration of YFOE’s 5th Anniversary. It is a lot harder to plant a tree than it sounds. We had chosen a spot on the UCD campus by a pond near the main gate. We were fortunate enough to have UCD groundskeeper Ciarán on hand to show us how things were done. He even pointed out a massive oak tree next to us that he said had been growing there since 1693! On the other side of the pond, several more trees he had planted some years earlier, which had stopped the encroachment of construction onto a pleasing green space for UCD students. Even on the day we were there nearby students were doing everything from meditating to playing with a Frisbee. Meanwhile we were being shown how to plant trees by Ciarán.
He started by ramming his shovel into the grass, forming a circle wider than the pots that held the trees we were going to plant. Wedging his shovel underneath, he scooped up a sod of muck and surface-grass before continuing to dig down. With years of experience behind him he was able to do it quickly as it was second nature to him. He had to leave early though and the few of us who came to plant trees found it a lot more physically demanding than we thought it would be. I certainly went along dressed as if it was going to be a simple photo-op; it turns out I should have brought gardening gloves to avoid the cuts I kept getting on my hands.
What makes the digging difficult is that you soon encounter a layer of hard rock that you literally have to smash through. I remember surprisingly little of my Leaving Cert Geography but I’m pretty sure that layer of rock forms there so that the surface of the ground is more solid. (Any Geography students who can correct me, please leave a comment.) You need to be very strong to smash up this rock into pieces small enough that you can throw away. I found myself having to jump into the air in order to bring enough force down on the rock. I knew my aim was right when I heard a loud metallic clank. A couple of times sparks flew when the metal shovel smashed against the stubborn rock.
We had to take turns trying to break through the rock and it was certainly taking us longer to do it than it took Ciarán. We were easily there more than an hour after he’d left. There was so much effort required it felt like we were disturbing nature just to plant a tree. It certainly makes you reflect on how permeable nature is when you start to dig down and you see you’ve created a lower level of ground below what was naturally formed. You can see it if you have ever been on a construction site. I once worked on construction sites in India, building schools in West Bengal and you could certainly see it there. It makes you think about our concept of how solid the ground is; about how much it is built upon.
When we finally broke through the layer of rock we had to dig a hole deep enough and wide enough to fit the pot our young trees had been held in. We were planting five trees altogether and once we got a hole deep enough for each of them we would lift them out of their pot and place them in. At this point you have to shovel the soil you dug out back over it. You have to do it tentatively at first, wiggling the tree around, shaking it up and down, to allow the soil to settle around it. Then you can just start piling it on, kicking the soil back over it until it is level with the ground again. Stomp on the soil around the tree so that it stands firmly. Then, it is crucial that you water the trees. Twice.
Our location next to the pond meant that we had water nearby that was full of various leaves, petals, mosquitoes and other organisms that would provide added nutrients for the newly-planted tree. You have to drown the tree generously, pouring water all around it and then waiting a few minutes before you give it water again. This is all physically-demanding work and I defy anyone who mocks it to show me how fast they can plant a tree. The strenuous effort makes it feel all the more worthwhile. You really feel like you have accomplished something. It is hoped that over the next 20 years our trees will grow to be 10 metres tall.
They feel like more than an eloquent way of marking the first five years of an environmentalist youth organisation. They really do feel like a legacy you can leave behind. In one of the schools I worked on in India, there’s a pillar that I poured the concrete into. I could go back to that village someday, see a vibrant school and know that I could point out the pillar that was my contribution to this school. Similarly I can go back to UCD years from now and see the trees that I helped plant. It is something I placed there, that is going to keep growing, possibly after I’ve died. And in terms of technology that can reduce CO2 emissions, they’re one of the best, cheapest and most easily-deployable pieces of technology. Go forth and deploy them!
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