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Keep Defending Trees, Air And Water
SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN - MY VIEW
Keep Defending Trees, Air And Water
By Emmy Koponen Nov 3, 2018
Who hasn't sampled the shade and atmosphere of a tree? With days reaching over 95 degrees this past summer, who wouldn't want to be by water for renewal and relief? To treasure and respect our water is supreme.
New Mexico's water table at our Santa Fe Canyon reservoir storage has gone up some of late, to 34.25 percent of capacity, (as listed in the Oct. 13 New Mexican), but to me that is quite scary. Housing developments are mushrooming all over, and we need to drastically reduce our usage.
Respect and honor the high country and the foothills. To hear and see a stream, the beginnings of a river to the ocean, and to feel its soothing power is to know how water is life. Enjoy its environs, observe the living and decaying trees, and knowing how they blanket the Earth.
A quality of shade lets the forest growth filter the suns harsh rays and allows the dampness of life to function. To protect the Santa Fe Watershed, we need to protect this blanket. Only nature does that. To interfere is folly, and aerosols, with plastic balls containing antifreeze and potassium permanganate, and ground ignitions of diesel fuel, destroy this. The surface made by the living and decaying trees is necessary to complete their purpose of building soil. When prescribed burns or harsh forest fires occur, the circle and beyond is broken.
Interbeing nourishes the canyons that carry the water from their mountain sources. The lower forests are necessary for the higher to survive. How could the coolness remain without the trees with their respiration? Survival is tough in these times of climate change and drought. Everything is scorched.
Parts of Santa Fe recently experienced a devastating flood; others were more fortunate. Erosion happens in extremes when there are fewer trees and shrubs to hold the soil. Deep roots are necessary.
With forest fires and prescribed burns, it is always time to treasure and respect our water source.
Our interference from forest management and ever-encroaching housing near the high country is eliminating trees, soil and all organisms that bind our forests. Air purification happens every day and we need all those trees, especially in this desert Southwest.
Emmy Koponen lives in Santa Fe.