Trees Benefit Everyone and Everything More Than You Know

Trees are a vital part of every day human quality of life

  • They provide us with shade.
  • They cool our homes.
  • They provide us many products we use daily: Paper, wood, chemicals, oils, resins.
  • Trees promote feelings of well-being and peace among people.
  • The foliage of trees help to mark the changing seasons, thus helping human to mark time.
  • Trees are a place for children to play in, under and around.
  • Because trees can survive for hundreds of years, they serve as property boundary markers, memorials of important historical events. Trees thus help bring people together, to unite people and to help people stay connected to their historical roots.
  • Trees act as gathering places for social activities and events. They can act  as places of unifying people, families, communities and generations.
  • Trees provide visual barriers, create screens, promote privacy, and make separations between divergent and sometimes conflicting elements of society.
  • Trees serve as wind screens and to buffer the impact of storms.
  • Trees increase property value.
  • Trees provide wood for fuel.
  • Trees improve the livability of cities for countless reasons. Trees add visual, emotional and psychological appeal, since few things can compare with the aesthetic impact and seasonal interest that trees offer the urban setting. They provide huge visual appeal to any area and can significantly enhance the design of a streetscape. Trees adds aesthetic beauty to one’s living space and improves the quality of life.

Trees are an essential economic asset for people and they create economic opportunities

  • They provide many jobs: the wood products industry, tree care industry, agriculture, nursery, pharmaceutical, chemicals industry.
  • From trees come essentials for everyday life including such things resins, fibers, chemical agents, pesticides, spices, perfumes, medicines, charcoal, fuel, furniture, food, cork, lumber, building materials other than lumber (e.g. leaves and bark), source of craft projects, artwork as well as all kinds of household utensils and tools and the list goes on.
  • Trees improve well-being in humans and productivity.
  • The presence of trees improves the economic success of retail business. Trees help to attract customers to businesses.
  • Trees increase property value.

Animals depend on trees

  • All animals feed directly or indirectly on trees and other plants.
  • Trees provide habitat for animals to live in.

The earth needs trees

  • Trees help to prevent soil erosion, thus preventing valuable topsoil from washing away especially on hillsides and steep terrain. Additionally, trees soak up ground water that would otherwise cause erosion and carry silt into water drainage systems and watersheds. Trees also slow down the winds that blows soil away, and their roots help to hold soil in place against wind action. 
  • Trees purify water by up-taking it and releasing it into the atmosphere. They improve water quality by filtering  ground water thus protecting the watershed and aquifers. That’s why the air in a forest is so fresh and pure and exhilarating and refreshing to breath; it’s full of moisture and contains freshly released pure oxygen.
  • Trees cool the air and soil around them making the earth more temperate. This is because their foliage soaks up the sun rays and keeps them from hitting the earth. The sun helps the trees since they need the suns energy for photosynthesis that produces tree food. Each tree release copious amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, which  further cools the earth.
  • Trees collect CO2 out of the atmosphere for food and the by product is oxygen (O2),which all living creatures need for survival. They sequester carbon or store it in the form of sugars for future food. The sequestering of carbon helps to reduce greenhouse gasses.
  • The leaves and bark of trees clean the air of pollution by acting as a filter to trap pollutants.
  • Trees help to reduce water runoff (by absorbing the water) thus reducing the amount of water flowing into rivers thus reducing pollution in rivers.
  • Trees absorb heat from sun thus helping to cool the earth.
  • Trees help to clean the soil. The term for this is phytoremediation whereby trees absorb dangerous chemicals and other pollutants that have entered the soil. Trees can either store harmful pollutants or actually change the pollutant into less harmful forms. Moreover, trees filter sewage and farm chemicals, reduce the effects of animal wastes, clean roadside spills and clean water runoff into streams.

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