THE NATURAL SERVICES OF A TREE



Kenya Forest Service Officer doing some pricking at a tree nursery. Photo credit: Mercy Musuya 


A tree of more than a hundred of years, for example, has had massive impact in the environment before a human defines its value. That tree absorbed carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas – from the atmosphere. Carbon sequestration is a major part played in life’s climate system. In return, the tree released oxygen as a by-product. The by-product is massively dependent upon by all animals including us for survival as well as in the photosynthesis process.

The leaves of the tree transformed the energy of photons it absorbed into sugar molecules thus the stored energy is liberated in metabolism reactions under control.

The tree’s roots clung to soil under harsh weather and climatic conditions like heavy rainfall, inhibiting erosion. Vast water quantities siphoned end up in the canopy. This is where it is therefore released through transpiration – ameliorating weather.

The tree offered a habitat, in its hundred years of existence, for countless life forms – lichens, fungi, bacteria, viruses, protozoa, worms, insects, birds and mammals. Not only in the roots but all the way to the tips of branches.

Despite all these “natural services” executed by that standing tree before fallen, human health as well as survival gets affected but all these performances are not considered of worthy by our economy.

Let’s have a different view to a tree beyond the timber and economic value. 

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