While scientists and climatologists are providing us with more and more specific information about how trees play a crucial role in reducing floods and global warming, South Carolina seems to be losing them faster than ever. At least that is the impression obtained in recent Post and Courier articles that detail unfortunate losses due to development, road safety, invasive species of beetles and power lines.
Each story chronicled unrelated efforts to remove trees – including some for understandable, if not easily acceptable, reasons. Our concern is with the cumulative effect that South Carolina’s growing population and prosperity are having on our collective tree cover, particularly in developed areas where its loss is seen by the majority.
Last year, the newspaper’s Rising Waters project described how Charleston County has lost more than 10,800 wooded acres to development since 1990, a loss that has exacerbated floods and the impacts of climate change. And Charleston County is a state leader when it comes to the actions of local governments to protect trees. The county and its largest municipalities restrict the removal of large trees and require the planting of new trees when a large, healthy tree is cut. We are happy to see more governments taking a similar approach, including the city of Greenville, which must protect “historic trees”, those with a diameter between 20 and 40 inches.
Still, even in Charleston, one of the first cities to pass a tree decree, about 170 hearts of palm are at risk because Dominion Energy says they are growing on power lines and creating a fire risk (separate and distinct the danger that some large trees pose to power lines during high wind storms). The city’s response – to examine the change in its underground power line policy to allow smaller projects instead of just the whole neighborhood – is a good step, which can save some existing, or at least future, trees by removing the power lines instead.
In southern Charleston County, thousands of other trees are at risk because they are infested with Asian long-horned beetles, a problem that has existed for several years. About 430 trees have had to be cut so far because it is the only way to limit the problem. The Clemson Extension Service and the SC Forestry Commission are looking for resources to provide trees for a replanting program to help make up for the loss, an effort that we applaud.
Meanwhile, SC Department of Transportation players who see the trees on Interstate 26’s central jobsite as more of a fatal danger to rebel drivers than a healthy, attractive corridor now have the advantage, as cleaning up that jobsite remains unfortunate. advance towards I-95. Some said that this is justified in part because the trees will eventually need to fall during an expansion project, many years from now; we disagree.
It is not just a question of shade and aesthetics (although the value of beauty should never be overlooked); A survey by the US Forest Service in the Francis Marion National Forest, north of Mount Pleasant, found that the trees captured about 70% of the rain there and returned moisture to the atmosphere. Less than a third flowed through rivers and streams. Although it is a large-scale example, it is clear that the loss of a hundred trees here and a few hundred there will increase the amount of rainwater that we are all struggling with.
The more our population grows, the more people there are to find reasons for this or that tree to disappear – and the more we risk losing a characteristic that helps make Lowcountry unique.
What this region and state need is more enlightened elected officials and corporate policies that seek to preserve our trees, and more advocacy groups that urge us, and them, to plant, restore and protect the trees.