The New York Times has a piece this week on the despicable business of illegally sawing big hunky burl chunks off of our massive redwood trees — our elders, as the Times elegantly notes — and selling them for profit on an apparently quite healthy global market. Says the story:
“The poachers, known locally as the ‘midnight burlers,’ are motivated by a sluggish local economy and expensive methamphetamine habits, park officials say, and they have been targeting ever-bigger burls and using increasingly brazen tactics.”
The story says there were 18 known cases of poaching last year in Redwood National and State Parks, including that of a 400-year-old tree — the first time a whole tree was cut down, that they know of, for burl. Much older trees have been hacked away at, and the slicing into their flesh to remove pretty burl can weaken them.
Some of the massive burls thieves go for harbor a complexity of forest life, including salamanders, high in the canopy. The story quotes folks comparing the burl thefts to “hacking up a church” and “killing elephants for ivory,” but it also quotes a young Orick fellow in a sighing way as saying burl thieving is “a sad way to earn a living, but there is no industry here.”
Um, yeah. So …
This article appears in Carving Space.
Dedicated to the Forest Rangers and Game Wardens who have fallen in the line of duty. On this up coming ‘Arbor’ Earth Day lets be mindful of their sacrifice.
The following poem is inspire by a hero of lore, who was half man, and half deer. Popular throughout medieval Europe he went by such names as Cernunnos, Wodan, and Herne. A spiritual figure who rides the winds of the ‘Wild Hunt’, he takes vengeance out on anyone who purposely harms the Earth, or her blessings.”
“Most conclude he never existed, but I wish he did!”
ANTLERED AVENGER
An antlered man upon a fire breathing black horse
To those of evil he shows little if any remorse
Called Wodan by some, and named Herne by others
He calls the fauna and the fawns his sisters and his brothers
Following a pack of Gabriel’s snow white Hell Hounds
On the gusts of stormy night winds the Heavens he bounds
Any of you who Mother Earth should you offend
He’ll snatch up your soul and to Hell he’ll condemn
So polluters and poachers you’d better beware
For an antlered avenger rides the night air.
Written by Kim Solem