Have you got your tree yet? Not your Christmas tree, but the tree every household in this jurisdiction is having planted in its name under the People's Millennium Forest deal? A pleasantly decorative envelope arrived recently for this household and a neat, illustrated brochure inside informed us that to celebrate the new millennium, a native Irish tree had been planted for the family at Shelton, Co Wicklow; tree number so and so. And a wish or blessing: "Maireann an Crann." Seamus Brennan, chairman of the National Millennium Committee signed it.
As you have read, it's a joint sponsorship of that Committee and AIB, with Coillte and the Woodlands of Ireland Group managing it. So 14 woodlands throughout the country are being restored as a lasting commemoration of the year that's in it, the millennium that's in it. Said to be the largest project ever undertaken to restore our forests, which at one time were reduced to one per cent of the original native cover. We have been making good progress in the thinking and doing about "releafing Ireland" as Crann, headed by Jan Alexander and friends have made us aware of the situation.
Great progress in public recognition of the situation; especially of our native trees, oak, ash, birch, rowan, Scots pine, alder and hazel, as they originally were. The project, according to the information which came with the notification of the new planting, tells us that it covers the 14 woodlands aforementioned, "Havens of peace and tranquility, fertile sanctuaries for flora and wildlife and in a larger sense essential to our environment and economic wellbeing".
There is a map with the pamphlet to show you how to make for your very own tree. But, don't get too excited. Your tree may be little more than a tiny seedling when you get to it, so you may be confined to the pathways through the newly-planted areas. There is even an information line 1850 248 848. All this is written, of course, on "environmentally friendly paper".
John Feehan wrote recently: "A world without woods is a world without healing for the human spirit." What a variety of trees this world holds. A friend brought back from Australia a book on a certain type of pine "a living fossil from the age of the Dinosaurs". We will look at that another day. Meantime, the same book carries a picture of a woman forester holding shoulder high a cone of the Bunya pine. It is about the size of a bucket.
In summer, the book says, they rain down and hit the ground "with a sound identical to the arrival of a bomb that fails to explode." Often they have to be excavated with a shovel from their craters. A park in suburban Sydney had to be closed for a month because of the danger to walkers. All sorts of trees. Y