Our environment is among the most important things in our lives.
But being always there since we came into earth, we rarely even notice it is there.
It only becomes important to us when we things slightly change and all of sudden we realize just how important the environment is to us.
Think of how life could be if all vegetation withered away for example? The environment, especially the plants, is among the strongest pillars of life.
We feed out of them, clothe on them and even form shelter out of them.
I find the tree to be the most important of the plants.
When I was founding my hobby of writing, there is this blank verse that I wrote and to this day, I like it.
I am man's [c]losest friend Altho[u]gh he rarely recognizes I fill his s[t]omach Cl[o]the him A[n]d shelter him All th[e] basic needs I shade him from the [p]ersistent sun Warm him when co[l]d Accomp[a]ny him to his death And unlike all his other frie[n]ds I en[t]er his grave with him And for all [t]his friendliness All that I [w]ant in return Is a little bit [o]f respect! Of course those were tender days in my journey to writing and the source of inspiration was to highlight the basic and almost very common theme in my country, cut one, plant two (as highlighted in parenthesis vertically).
But thinking about it today, and as I try to think what importance I can attribute to the tree, I cannot say of it less.
Coming from a country where farming is the backbone of the economy and the population's lifeline, it is not very hard to understand the meaning of this important part of life.
Here we have cut trees for charcoal and timber, only to cry later of drought.
We have felled whole stands of indigenous trees only to replace it with water-drying exotic types.
We have cleared forests to plant foodstuffs that don't even see the fruitition of a season.
We cry today of our myopia on the importance of the tree.
By so doing we have not only put ourselves at risk, but also the wild animals, which form another very important part of the country's economy.
We are not the only victims here, the same story can be resonated the world over.
Population growth has called to vast deforestation and the effects are clear.
It has now become a common phenomenon that the weather is no longer predictable.
Climate change is a common worry and has been discussed in the highest international forums.
Just the other day, Europe's airspace was closed owing to bad weather.
The tropics are nowadays hotter than ever and when it rains, the torrents are unforgiving.
Global warming is now a well understood term and carbon trading drives gaining international importance.
The efforts of all and sundry are important in order to counter the dangerous trend in our environment.
I have planted a few trees in my father's farm...
i plan to plant more.
What about you?