Mattapoisett’s Tree Committee is an active and vital volunteer group dedicated to the preservation of the town’s trees and its canopy. Just ask any one of the eight members, and you will hear how important tree preservation and planting is to human life.
As part of Mattapoisett’s Arbor Day observances that included raising the Arbor Day flag at Town Hall, the committee watched as its gift of a magnolia tree was planted at the Police Station.
Committee Chairman Sandy Hering explained that the tree and the accompanying inscribed grant marker were in honor and recognition of all first responders in Mattapoisett. The committee wanted to make a strong statement of their support and appreciation for those men and women who sacrifice their personal safety every day in the line of duty and never more so than during the pandemic.
Hering, along with members Susan Perkins and Mike Immel, pointed out that trees help with drainage by consuming as much as 120 gallons of water each and every day. Trees also improve air quality, clean the atmosphere of dust and provide critical shade. On that singular point, the group said that the tree canopy helps to reduce power costs and consumption by reducing the ambient temperature under their leafy shade.
In partnership with programs offered by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, each year local fifth-grade students are invited to participate in a poster contest. The chosen rendering then is placed in a statewide competition. Hering said that this year the committee was delighted to receive 35 entries. The poster theme for 2022 was, “Be a cool community – plant trees.”
Arbor Day celebrations have been taking place for 150 years. As pioneers moved westward, they were surprised to find how treeless and open the plains were. The landscape lacked windbreaks, and the winds removed precious soils.
In the late 1800s, J. Sterling Morton, a newspaper editor in Nebraska City, enthusiastically advocated that the residents take responsibility for tree planting. The request caught on as civic organizations began planting trees. When Morton became secretary of the Nebraska Territory, he spread his message that trees were vital and necessary to the survival of the humankind. In January 1872, Morton promoted a tree-planting holiday called Arbor Day. The rest is an ongoing story of tree planting now across the planet.
The national organization, the Arbor Day Foundation, notes on its website Arborday.org that in the last 50 years, groups around the globe have been supplied with 500,000,000 trees in 50 countries. Now on the 150th anniversary of this secular holiday, their stated goal is to plant another 500,000,000 but in just five years, “… because the world can’t wait.”
Arbor Day is a time to remember we share the planet with all living forms with trees being a very grand and essential part. Hering said, “Future generations will thank us for what we do today. Or to put it another way, the author Nelson Henderson wrote, ‘The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.’”
By Marilou Newell
