ACCEPTANCE

Working through my resentment at the tree removals, I find other things to look at.  I can now observe clearly the raging stream of muddy water coming down from the mountains as a result of recent rainy weather.

Sorry the image is not as clear as could be, I don't have a telephoto lens on my trusty little Casio EXILIM.

Insider information provided to me has indicated that liability was not the real issue in these tree sacrifices. (Really, that's what we have insurance for.)  The problem was partly that there were people who do not share our view, both literal and not, of the trees...they want a sort of controlled presentation of nature: those trees are in the way of modern order.  And there is the nature jingoist camp: the albizia is not a native tree!  (Like what is NATIVE in Hawaii anyway?) There is a school of thought that claims that anything that didn't get here on its own (through surf wash-up or bird droppings) is a non-native species. Thus, got to go.  Illegal alien. No passport, deportation. Bring on the chain saw.

Several years ago, when I worked for an environmental education non-profit,  I was privileged to visit one of the last remaining truly native places in Hawaii, a Nature Conservancy-preserved Hawaiian rainforest on Maui, on the north slope of Haleakala.  It is very beautiful, spiritual really, but it is odd.  The native Hawaiian rainforest is upside down: all the biodiversity is on the bottom, there is nothing reaching to the heavens.

In this ideological environmental struggle, there are concessions made about endemic (as opposed to invasive) species.  Endemics are acceptable, like coconut palms (the pathetic replacements for our albizias) because they were brought by native people, in the period pre-contact with Westerners.  So pigs and coco palms are endemic and acceptable. Although everyone agrees that wild pigs are a nuisance (but delicious--they can be hunted only with dogs and a bow and arrow).

If you come to Hawaii you will wonder why there are coconut palms high up in the mountains; the coconut is supposed to wash up on the shore and root itself.  It is said that a coconut was planted wherever a wild pig was killed. (And where did those pigs come from?)  Whether this is to propitiate some spirit, or to signal that "pigs have been found in this area" is not clear to me.  I am treading on sensitive territory here.

In my mind though, the bottom line is that in the larger scheme of things, a tree is a tree.  My albizias were really well established.  (Huge trunks, like this one, more than 4 feet from top to bottom.)

And I miss the beauty of the treetops, the birds coming and going in the branches, the fragrance of the blossoms that kept bees busy.  I am told the people (i.e., the condo board members, think "Congress") who voted for the removal of the trees do not live in or on my side of the building. Democracy in action. (I have often thought that if we want to present American-style democracy to the world, we should just invite a few of the potential converts to a condo board meeting.  Then we'll see what happens!)