The Man Who Planted Trees Quotes

“What an irony it is that these living beings whose shade we sit in,
whose fruit we eat, whose limbs we climb, whose roots we water, to
whom most of us rarely give a second thought, are so poorly
understood. We need to come, as soon as possible, to a profound
understanding and appreciation for trees and forests and the vital
role they play, for they are among our best allies in the uncertain
future that is unfolding.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet

“Even viewed conservatively, trees are worth far more than they cost to
plant and maintain. The U.S. Forest Service's Center for Urban Forest
Research found a ten-degree difference between the cool of a shaded
park in Tucson and the open Sonoran desert. A tree planted in the
right place, the center estimates, reduces the demand for air
conditioning and can save 100 kilowatt hours in annual electrical use,
about 2 to 8 percent of total use. Strategically planted trees can
also shelter homes from wind, and in cold weather they can reduce
heating fuel costs by 10 to 12 percent. A million strategically
planted trees, the center figures, can save $10 million in energy
costs. And trees increase property values, as much as 1 percent for
each mature tree. These savings are offset somewhat by the cost of
planting and maintaining trees, but on balance, if we had to pay for
the services that trees provide, we couldn't afford them. Because
trees offer their services in silence, and for free, we take them for
granted.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet

“Planting trees, I myself thought for a long time, was a feel-good thing, a nice but feeble response to our litany of modern-day environmental problems. In the last few years, though, as I have read many dozens of articles and books and interviewed scientists here and abroad, my thinking on the issue has changed. Planting trees may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet

“Why do these light beings care about trees?” I asked. “They are concerned about the survival of the planet. Call them light beings, plant devas, earth spirits, or angels, they are real, and there are some in charge of the trees. Americans are about the only ones who don’t believe in such things, but they are out there and a lot of people can hear them, including me. We treat the earth like it’s dead, which allows us to do what we want, but it’s not dead.” Genetics is critical to the survival of the forests, they told him, and one day science will be able to prove it.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: A Story of Lost Groves, the Science of Trees, and a Plan to Save the Planet

“What we have lost by mowing down the forests around the world...is far more than big trees. We've squandered the genetic fitness of future forests. With humans high grading, cutting down the best trees time and again, the great irreplaceable trove of DNA that had been shaped and strengthened over millennia by surviving drought, disease, pestilence, heat, and cold -- the genetic memory--was also gone. The DNA that may be best suited for the tree's journey into an uncertain future on a warming planet has all but vanished, just when we need it most.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet

“A tree that is five, six, eight, or fifteen feet across, the champions we are cloning, is what the size of all the trees in our forests once was, that all of America was covered with, not just one lone, last solider standing. When we look at the trees around us, we're looking at the runts, the leftovers. The whole country should be forested coast to coast with these giants, not with the puny, scraggly, miserable mess we call our forests. We don't realize what we've lost.

The champions do their best in communities that are hundreds or thousands of acres. They're struggling in little pockets to hang on... We're in the fifty-ninth minute of the last hour.”
― Jim Robbins, The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet