If you don't plant a walnut tree, in 20 years time, you won't have walnuts.

I've been searching the webs for this quote to no avail, but I'm more than certain I found it in a permaculture book and that it's Bill Mollison. Was he thinking of the Chinese proverb that tells us that the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, and the second best time is now?

Yet with the current rates of deforestation, is that even enough?

It's easy to feel depressed as we watch the impact of deforestation and agriculture threaten biodiversity on the planet. It's equally depressing to know that for many people, there's little choice but to work in industry's that supply wood to feed over consumption and consumerism in more developed countries - junk mail, food packaging, toilet paper and the like, as well as bio-fuels such as palm oil.

What do we do in the face of that, despite doing the right thing? How can we not weep to know facts that, if the current rates of deforestation continue:

• it will take less than 100 years to destroy all the rainforests on the earth
• 28,000 species will become extinct in the next twenty five years

Whilst we most often think of the Amazon rainforest as the most iconic example of devastating deforestation, displacement of peoples and loss of species and medicinal plants, it's right here in Australia too. In fact, Australia is one of the top ten deforesters in the world.

Queensland has seen more land clearing for agriculture than all the other states of Australia combined. Between 2012-13 and 2015-16 more than a million hectares of land had been cleared - up to 65 percent of the total loss of forests across Australia in the last four decades, according to the Climate Change Council report. The report found:

In 2015:

• in the land use sector in Queensland, 19 million tonnes of greenhouse gas was produced - around 20 percent of the pollution from it's entire energy sector

• The clearing rate at that time was the highest since 2003-2004 - nearly 500,000 hectares a year

• Nearly 400,000 hectares of woody vegetation was cleared - nearly a third more than the year before and *half the forest cleraed in the Brazilian Amazon in 2016

The report also stated that land clearing policies have a 'significant impact on the rates of land clearing' - this makes sense. Strong laws make for less land clearing - and if the laws are relaxed, more land clearing takes place. The Queensland government's passing of a law to amend their Vegetation Management act is of course welcome by those with deep concern for the environment, including run off from agriculture to the Great Barrier Reef, that already suffers due to climate change. It's proposed that protected forests will now be tripled from 500,000 to 1.8 million hectares.

Of course there has been fierce objections from farmers who are worried it's going to ruin their livelihood. It's the same arguments made by the loggers ripping the old growth forests in Tasmania, and we must feel compassion for them as they are trying to survive like anyone. It's the same Greens Versus Farmers pitch - that the Greens are ruthless liars and over the top militants about environmental protection, whereas the farmers are heroes feeding the people. Many agriculturalists feel frustrated because they believe they are looking after the land as it's in their best interests to do so.

There's no easy answer for this, although many of us could - and have - come up with alternatives, I'm sure, including local and circular economies, reduced animal agriculture, education, responsible land stewardship and many other sustainable practices that would do away with the need for large scale de-forestation in the first place.

Australia is a World Leader in Deforestation and Species Extinction

It's really hard to not get emotionally involved in something in a state thousands of kilometres away from me and there's nothing I can do about it. How can I not feel sorry and depression when I hear that tree clearing in rural Queensland is 15 times more destructive to the state state’s koala populations than urban sprawl?. How can I not despair when I hear that Australia has some of the highest extinction rates on the planet for plants and animals??

The passing of the laws in Queensland is great news for koalas:

But of course, we can't just heave a sigh of relief and believe it's all over. Maybe I'm just being a pessimist, but still. We just have to do more. Do what we can. Sometimes it feelings like we are fighting a losing battle.

According to the Conversation, any environmental programs are actually nullified with the rates of deforestation:

Since 2014, the federal government has invested A$2.55 billion on reducing emissions in the Carbon Farming Initiative through the Emissions Reduction Fund. Currently 189 million tonnes of abatement has been delivered by the Emissions Reduction Fund. This – the central plank of the Australian government’s climate response – will be all but nullified by the end of 2018 with the current clearing rates, and will certainly be wiped out by 2020, when Australia is expected to meet its climate target of 5% below 2000 emissions.

How is all this affecting our psychology?

Eco-anxiety is a psychological trauma that stems from a deep concern about the environment. If we're not immediately impacted by flood, fire and deforestation, eco-anxiety takes the form of other forms of despair, as Quartz journal writes:

Slower disasters like the “unrelenting day-by-day despair” of a prolonged drought, or more insidious changes like food shortages, rising sea levels, and the gradual loss of natural environments, will “cause some of the most resounding chronic psychological consequences,” the APA writes in its 69-page review of existing scientific literature, co-authored by Climate for Health and EcoAmerica, both environmental organizations. “Gradual, long-term changes in climate can also surface a number of different emotions, including fear, anger, feelings of powerlessness, or exhaustion.”

The American Psychological Association's Review 'Mental Health and Our Changing Climate' looked at many scientific papers and journals to conclude effects such as:

• “watching the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations.”
• being "deeply affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference in stopping climate change,”
• feeling the "detrimental impact of guilt, as people contemplate the impact of their own behavior on future generations.”

If I'm suffering eco-anxiety, what can I do about it?

I mean, apart from write to parliament, sign petitions, buy ethical products, consume less and all those other things we've been doing for years?

Source

I have to do active things that are within my scope of control.

And thus, I am back at this quote again, turning it over and over in my hands like a beautiful apple, crisp and sweet.

"If you don't plant walnut trees, in twenty years you won't have walnuts"

I love it's pragmatism. Plant, or don't plant - it doesn't matter. But if you do plant, you'll get something out of it. Ain't that the truth.

And so plant we must. In William Cullen Bryant's poem 'The Apple Tree', this is done as an invitational, instructing the tree planters to do so carefully and tenderly, so that the tree might last into a future where children play around it, lovers rest under it and then, many years into the future, men will wonder who planted it. He knows he is planting more than a tree - he's planting shade, shelter, a nest for birds, the potential of sweet fruit.

Come, let us plant the apple-tree.
Cleave the tough greensward with the spade;
Wide let its hollow bed be made;
There gently lay the roots, and there
Sift the dark mould with kindly care,
And press it o’er them tenderly

Sure, we feel small, ineffective and insignificant against the ravages of environmental degradation, despite our efforts to be ethical consumers. It can all be completely overwhelming.

When we first found our 5 acres we were totally overwhelmed. In fact, it took us a week to even get to the bottom of the property and look back, we were so intimidated the job we had ahead of us. The real estate agent had declared it would be 'paradise' for the new owners, but even he had to admit it was a bit of a stretch. It was an empty block of land, save 3 gum trees, a lot of grass, two sheds and a driveway. Oh, and a beautiful sunset to the west, and very small lake fully of lily ponds bordering the bottom corner.

Yet what if we didn't give in to this feeling of helplessness and wondering whether any of our work would make a difference to the world?

What if we just planted anyway (be it a literal garden, or a metaphoric one) knowing that our labours will eventually bear fruit? What if we plant with poetry? Enjoyed the sensation of hands sunk into soil, the light from the setting sun stroking the land with orange palms, speaking to bees as they come home to their box under the tallest gum? What if we drunk in the cool winter air and sweated as we dug and carted water in buckets to give them a little head start before the rains? What if we saw the forest in our minds before it even begun?

We will give you what we can — our labor and our soil,
Water drawn from the earth when the skies fail,
Nights scented with the ocean fog, days softened by the circuit of bees.
We plant you in the corner of the grove, bathed in western light,
A slender shoot against the sunset.

We can draw so much inspiration, too, from people all over the world that, despite the devastation around them, spend their lives planting and not letting any lassitude, disability, age, poverty or any other excuse prevent them doing what they believe is important.

Check out, for example, these two heart warming videos. I could just watch them over and over. The first one is a couple in China. I love the way their daughter worries about the mother so, and wants them to come live with them, but the old couple brush her off, following their dhamma of planting trees. They aren't worried if there's disaster - they simply vow to plant more. No bother. And if the wind blows down the trees, we will plant more! He inspires us to be determined: you give up when you aren't determined, and you keep going when you are. It's such a simple truth. He says:

"In my heart, I don't think it's so difficult. In fact, I'm very happy about it"

And then there are these two!

On our very own Steemit, you can be part of planting trees twice - plant your own, and contribute to planting one - @intrepidsurfer has a steemforest giveaway pool to encourage people to plant trees. Get on over there and check it out - you can check out all the tree planting going on in @intrepidsurfer 's curation here.

It's these kinds of small actions that make the world a better place. Just being out there with my hands in the soil calms my anxiety. I remember planting beautiful swamp mahogany gums about 9 years ago, in a triangle formation, imagining that one day they'd be huge and you could stand in the middle of all three and get shade from all directions. I could see the forest in my mind's eye. Jamie, being a pessimist at times (he calls himself a realist) said: 'why are we bothering? We're never going to see them that big in our lifetime!). Sure, maybe not.

But they are already 15 feet high! And all those tiny trees we planted have made our place the paradise we'd been promised. A friend described our place as a 'bush block' the other day and this totally threw me. I realised that it was - we had made it so!

We will be planting more trees over the Winter, and in twenty years time, we'll have beautiful trees because of it. It's not much, but it's something.

What trees are you planting? What do you do against the tsunami of tree-felling around us?