living trees
stripped of dignity
what future
This was the scene looking down at the harbour of Napier on the central East coast of New Zealand’s North Island. Plantation timber is a big export market in New Zealand. These harvested trees came from what was once naturally vegetated landscape, now much of it gone and replaced by monocultures. These milled trees were waiting in orderly piles for a one way trip to some distant Asian processing plant some of them probably returning as paper or cardboard packaging in the future. The same cycle occurs in our South eastern state of Victoria in Australia, the big difference being some of our trees are indigenous. There is a certain stupidity existing in so many elements of todays economically rationalised global economy.
These images are for the one a week Photo Challenge and this week for number 38 the challenge is ORDERLY . For this years 52 weekly challenges planned by Cathy and Sandra visit Cathy’s blog at https://nanacathydotcom.wordpress.com/one-a-week-photo-challenge-2017/
Those are very orderly piles. Your haiku made me think. We humans are greedy destructive creatures aren’t we!
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Great to hear the haiku worked, the more one thinks about human needs/demands the more one realises we cannot continue like this.
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Our greed will eventually finish us off unless we mature into forward thinking creatures.
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The door is almost closed Sandra, greed is out of control.
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A wonderful image with a powerful message. My favourite one for this prompt. We do live in silly times.
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Thanks Cathy, it took the challenge for me to arrive at the image then haiku so its a joint effort.
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A very poignant haiku Denis and the images tell a thousand stories too.
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Thanks Xenia, thats a story from each tree I reckon.
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This is a shocking scene. I remember the first time I saw this in person. We had traveled to the the NW part of the United States. I had read about how verdant the area was and about the first scene I saw was the side of a mountain stripped naked. Sad and shocking. I think now they make them replant but back when I saw it they didn’t. The fight to save the Spotted Owl is what saved the mountains. Even the mountains must love the coat of trees, shrubs etc that cloak them. I know I certainly would rather see that than the naked rocks. It is all so unsettling. Then you think about all the creatures that live there how they felt. I wonder how long they lasted when this devastation occurred. What future…
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue Lisa, you confirm the internationality of the madness, all for immediate human wants. You are so right, the devastation caused to ecosystems , especially the animals, birds and insects is rarely considered and has to be fought for by a selfless few.
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Hand over my heart, for the sacrifice these trees made…
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Thanks Annette, we all need our hands there so often on this issue.
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I hope they are at least replanting. Your haiku sums it up.
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In NZ much of the original vegetation is gone, they replace plantation with plantation monocultures.
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“Stripped of dignity” — a powerful comment
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We approached this scene from the other side of the harbour and behind the hill so it was quite confronting to suddenly look down upon these stacks of logs.
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