mayor@vernon.ca,

sanderson@vernon.ca,

tdurning@vernon.ca,

kfehr@vernon.ca,

kgares@vernon.ca,

amund@vernon.ca,

bquiring@vernon.ca,

Jshipton@vernon.ca

I am writing to inquire if you will consider looking at the tree protection policy in Vernon. 

In some cities, like Whiterock, trees can not be cut during nesting season from March until October. Trees provide shade, habitat and oxygen to our city. And they don’t seem very protected despite reading the legislation for permits.

Last year I barely survived the heat dome where 619 people died due to hyperthermia. I watched as birds dropped from the sky and deer fell down unable to breathe in the heat. It was a human made apocalypse designed by greed and consumption of natural resources. 

Our tree canopy provides shade and can easily reduce temperatures by 20 degrees.

Trees vibrate at a rate that cures cancer and provides oxygen to our lungs. The green light filter heals our minds and calms the nervous system. They provide habitat for birds, squirrels and deer.

Our city has particulates so high that we have inflated asthma in children. Trees are filters of the air and provide calming effects in our tar jungle that is known to cause rage and mental health issues. Vernon has one of the highest rates of domestic abuse.

This is why I don’t understand why people hate trees so much. 

I recently experienced one of the most violent trauma’s of my life:  every single tree on our property was hacked down. Hundreds of birds would flock here daily. At least 200 would fly from tree to tree to tree. They lived in the forest of aspen like trees on one side of the property. There were at least 40 quail in the area and all but 1 family are gone, hiding their babies under a rose bush that barely protects them from eagles, hawks, owls, cats, dogs and coyotes. 

Watching nature be systematically and intentionally destroyed was painful. The ability to premeditate loss of life to animals and intentionally injure people by removing all shade is not something I can fathom.  There were 3 long days of watching limbs being removed, trees falling, birds fleeing their homes, likely losing their nests and showing confusion when they came home in the evening to roost and found their homes butchered. 

The worst sound was 10 hours a day of a wood chipper grating these ancient souls into pieces through a grinder. There was no dignity for the tree. They were immediately and violently turned into sawdust, before the spirit of the tree could leave. The violence will remain embedded in the environment and my mind for years.

I would like to introduce the concept of amending local laws to include personhood for trees. All over the world indigenous are fighting the corrupt colonialization that is destroying all of nature. Although this would need to be accepted in a court of law I think it’s an idea worthy of introducing to the environmental protection bylaw creators of this city. 

https://www.legalcheek.com/lc-journal-posts/branching-out-could-we-give-legal-rights-to-trees/

Humans are the only species so lacking connection to the ecosystem that they will purposely destroy the existence of themselves in order to make money. It is estimated we might have 50 years left before we destroy ourselves completely. In less than one hundred years the colonial pathways of the post industrial revolution has destroyed over 50% of all species. Westernized human beings behave in predatory ways towards the ecosystem and have no insight or sensitivity into the cycles of nature.

Tree Communicators have known for thousands of years what “science” is finally “proving.” Trees sense, communicate, feel and cry.  Yes, they have feelings. People lacking in one of the most basic senses, “empathy” thought animals couldn’t feel or think either.  Most people now know this to be untrue.  Books such as The Secret Lives of Plants detailed the testing of the inner world of these sentient beings.

Our history in Canada is based on annihilation of all living beings, systematically destroying the indigenous, the forests and the animals.   This Canadian mentality is evident looking around us; butchered roadways, tar filled city streets, radiating lamp posts, dead lawns, mountains chipped into little blocks and feed lots everywhere. We are not an evolved, enlightened culture, but one still wading through the dark ages of violence and abuse towards nature.

We can do better. We can treat life with dignity. We can have bylaws that protect habitat. We can eliminate the removal of trees during nesting season. We can require permits that require the cost of $50,000 to remove a tree. We can make it more difficult and challenge people to find creative solutions.  

https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2705309721

https://suzannesimard.com/about/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/24/suzanne-simard-finding-the-mother-tree-woodwide-web-book-interview

I know giving value to life is a difficult thing in our colonial culture, however I would like to help pave the way for things to change.

I would love to be a part of a discussion to change how we treat our ecosystem and the living beings within it. I think we can start with Tree By Law Protections; the place where developers and inhabitants merge. The place where those who love trees and those who fear them find themselves at odds. 

Sincerely,

A Tree Whisperer