Image Description: cross section of tree showing growth rings
In my last musing, I said trees should have the same rights as people. I want to continue in the vein of trees by reflecting on the value of the veins of trees. Here’s my argument: Let’s stop treating trees like commodities of capitalism where we value them based on board feet of lumber.
I’ll set the stage for this argument on the value of trees with a facilitation from a couple of months ago.
I am leading some activities to help a group of local conservation organizations build a shared vision for engagement with Indigenous communities. Part of visioning is dreaming together, but it’s hard for our brains to dream into the future when our bodies are stuck in the present. So I run an activity called “time machine” to get folks to physically embody our future selves. I ask the group to pretend we’re all reconvening in five years’ time, and to reflect on what has happened in the last five years. I make it a little campier by asking them to pretend I am a local journalist reporting on the progress of local conservation work. We then stand up and spin around clockwise with our eyes closed, the kinesthetic equivalent to fast forwarding to five years from now. A few turns later, it’s 2027, and people start sharing their news.
“The dams were dismantled, and the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers are now flowing freely. Floodplains are restored to their natural conditions. Farmers and people who built their second homes too close to the water are pissed!”
“Land is returned to Native people, and Native foodways are thriving. There’s even a camas festival and an oak and fire festival during the traditional seasons for harvesting and burning.”
“The downfall of capitalism!!”
Wait up-what? The downfall of capitalism? In 2027?
It's amazing how role playing can shake up old and ingrained ways of thinking. When I suggest, “let’s dismantle capitalism,” people balk and look at me as if I have lobsters crawling out of my ears. “That’s impossible!” or “Let’s be realistic!” are two of the most recent reactions. But when a participant at my 2027 conservation press conference says, “the downfall of capitalism!” there was only one lobster looker. Most folks sighed, nodded, and smiled wistfully, as in “aaaah… Imagine how cool that would be!”
If I were a participant in that activity (and not the facilitator), I would have said something like: “Trees now have the same rights as people, and they aren’t treated like commodities whose only worth is the board feet of lumber they produce! We recognize they have inherent value and rights to exist. And the value of trees to us as humans is based on them being lifesavers and life givers.”
Value… This is what the Merriam-Webster online Dictionary says about the word “value” as a noun:
Isn’t it telling that the definition of “value” published by an American dictionary established in 1831 is imbued with the assumption that what is “valued” is a “thing,” and that this thing’s value is determined by its usefulness to us as humans and represented by “the monetary worth,” “market price,” or “a numerical quantity?” Capitalism.
In the U.S., typically, a tree is valuated based on the number of board feet it can produce. And timber land is valued based on its “highest and best use.” Timber company Ohio Timber Works says the “board footage you harvest is the single most important factor in estimating the value of your standing timber.” They even provide an online guide to help you value your timber. 3 easy steps, they say:
So it should be no surprise given our orientation toward trees as the things that we use to build our homes that that forests are considered farms, managed as agriculture, and called “plantations.” Capitalism.
300 years ago, this was not the case. The lands where I live were one of the world’s largest temperate rainforests, and not a home for tree plantations. Along with settlement and the first timber mills in the 1850s came the notion that trees exist at the pleasure of humans and for our use. By 2000, only six percent of western Oregon and Washington’s old growth forests remained.
What would have happened if the value of a tree was not in the board feet it could produce, or its “best use?”
Trees as spiritual protectors. Modern capitalistic forestry science tells us that actually, old growth trees are less valuable than young trees because as trees age, they grow more slowly and therefore produce less board feet in a given year. These trees are called “decadent” in forestry lingo, and the few decadent trees that remain are largely due to the timber industry’s too-late lightbulb moment that old growth trees don’t produce as much timber as a forest of youthful 20-year-olds. But for the Lummi Nation, the value of a tree is based on something very different. Skwadi’lic, or the spiritual power of the cedar tree, actually increases as the tree ages and the growth rings grow more tightly. This was irrelevant to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, which informed the Lummi Nation that cultural values didn’t matter, and the trees would only be saved from logging if there was another use recognized by the agency, such as endangered species habitat or scenic value. If an old tree is pretty for visitors, it can stay: they said. If its energy sustains your community, we don’t care.
Trees as carbon absorbers. For another Indigenous community, the only way to save trees has been to lean into capitalism. One of the often discussed #landback case studies is that of the Yurok Nation, who have been taking advantage of California’s carbon offset program to buy back ancestral homelands. Through this program, they have been able to prove that the trees are more “valuable” standing than cut down due to their ability to absorb carbon. Treepeople reports that “In one year, an acre of mature trees absorbs the same amount of CO2 produced when you drive your car 26,000 miles.” So, by taking an inventory of the trees and providing calculations of carbon absorption, the Yurok tribe have been able to generate income through the sale of carbon offset credits, and this income has enabled them to buy back their land. Even the Yurok Nation acknowledges that this program is ethically controversial because ultimately, it contributes to greenwashing by allowing polluting industries to offset their sins of emission with carbon credits. But in a time where Indigenous people have little power over their sovereignty, let alone to dismantle capitalism, this has been a creative solution.
Trees as life givers and life savers. One of the first things I learned about in school is that plants produce the oxygen we need to survive. Treepeople reports that “In one year an acre of mature trees can provide enough oxygen for 18 people.” So… what if we valued trees not based on board feet, but based on the oxygen they produce? Or other life-giving properties? In the 1970s, professor T.M. Das of the University of Calcutta did just that. He came up with a way to measure trees that wasn’t based on the lumber it could produce, but on oxygen and other life giving and lifesaving properties. He estimated that a 50-year-old tree had a calculated value of $193,000.
This calculation does not account for the cooling value that urban trees provide in an increasingly hot world. But the fact remains that in the U.S., nobody will pay $193,000 for a mature pine tree to be left standing. They’d rather pay $30 for it to be cut down, and then turn a profit by selling 1000 board feet for $60. Capitalism.
One of my favorite science fiction authors, Ursula Le Guin, said in a 2014 award acceptance speech:
“We live in a time of capitalism. It seems inescapable. But so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.”
Though I’m not often artful with my words, I do think there’s an art to redefining words. If the “value” of a thing is not defined based on commodification, we can resist capitalism in our communication, and maybe even in our relationships with the beings we value. As I peck away at my computer keyboard and type, “let’s stop treating trees like commodities of capitalism,” I am sure some of you will gawk at this post as if I have lobsters crawling out of my ears (fingers?). But I hope that others of you can embody your future selves, if only for a few minutes, to wonder with me about a not so radical time when we can think about the value of a tree a little differently.
Well said!
We’ll said!