||| BY B. SADIE BAILEY |||

It hurts my heart to see our community tree on the Village Green in such poor condition. I didn’t notice how damaged it was until a few weeks ago when I walked past it. I saw between 8 and 10 people – mostly young adults and teenagers with several children in tow – all come in and climb the tree; some all the way up to the thinner branches. I stood there for about 40 minutes watching the whole spectacle and witnessing the complete oblivion and disregard for our rare tree and its non-human inhabitants. As people continued to come in, I said loudly that this was our community tree, it was important to us, so it should not be harmed. They ignored me.

Our city tree is getting more and more damaged every summer. On the north side, there is a huge gap at ground level that goes way up, and another one down NNW. People can just walk in and start climbing. Many of the lower branches are dead; broken off and removed. The roots are damaged by all the feet stepping on them. Bare branches and dying needles can be seen through the once solid curtain of soft, dangling needles. Further up the tree, there are more gaps and holes where branches have broken off because people have shaken them or whatever – and there is no foliage left to protect from the strong winds we have much of the year, or from the drought summers. (See photo.)

This tree should be decorated green to the ground. As more branches die and more gaps appear, the tree will suffer and have less protection from the elements and man-made damage. It was and still is beautiful – the pride of our village square. We light it up every year for the winter holidays and gather around it for celebrations and events. Some of us remember it being planted years ago when it was so small.

There is no sign or plaque stating what kind of tree it is, when it was planted, how rare it is and why its protection is important. It is disheartening to see how many people carry on blithely, not recognizing other life forms besides humans as relatives to be valued, honored, respected and protected.

How about we use a portion of the tourism tax to fund a fund to protect our beautiful community tree from further damage and pay for an informative plaque? (How is the tree protection ordinance that San Juan County promised us going?)

If locals and tourists have so little respect for a living thing, maybe it’s time to close it off from people climbing on it. We already have a playground on the Green for the kids. Our community tree is not a toy, not a playground, nor does it have a right to have hundreds or thousands of people climbing on it every year. It was planted for many generations to love, care for and enjoy. Let’s not “love” it to death.