What is the environmental impact of Christmas tree
farming?
 As
we examine our personal conduct on the planet, we can reasonably
ask what impact does carrying on with this tradition have on the
land and our environment, and whether Christmas trees are being
grown in a sustainable way. While we so often hear of battles lost
on the environmental front, there is good news here that is truly
welcome. To understand the current state of the environmental impact
we need to look at the Christmas tree industry as it now stands.
Nowadays the tradition of going to the woods to bring
home a tree for Christmas is really just a nostalgic reminder. All
the Christmas trees being commercially produced in the United States
are now grown on farms. And on these lands, Christmas trees are a
conservation crop. By replacing annual crops require plowing, discing,
and harrowing each year with Christmas trees, the longer crop cycle
of eight to ten years provides many avenues for environmental improvements.
Growing trees offer many benefits that help the land rebound and diversify.
Tree farms are good stewards of the earth
As Christmas trees take root, we are growing and preserving
soils. Many farmlands are highly depleted of organic matter. Christmas
trees are pruned by hand every summer, and this deposits large quantities
of twigs and needles onto the ground. This combines with a level of
grass and weeds that accumulate over the eight years or so that it
takes a Christmas tree to grow. Mature roots physically hold the soil
against erosion, and later add more organic matter as the stumps and
roots rot. After a few years of growth the young trees help protect
the ground from what is called impact erosion, which is a result of
the heavy rainfall in Christmas tree producing areas. When the trees
get big enough, the shade they produce helps reduce soil evaporation,
and offers refuge for a remarkable diversity of wildlife. Small birds
probably get the most benefit, but small rodents and other mammals
support populations of birds of prey. Deer are common and even elk
are in some of the more remote fields, drawn to graze on some of their
preferred foods that grow as weeds between the rows.
 Another
important way Christmas trees impact the environment is controlling
runoff and changing the timing of the release of water from the soil
in a beneficial way. Obviously, when receiving a deluge of heavy rainfall,
land with a humus layer and tree roots can slow down or even eliminate
surface flows of water runoff and increase the absorption of water
into the earth. And this kind of sustained rainfall happens with some
regularity in the Pacific Northwest. But almost as important is the
way that land with Christmas trees will more slowly release that water
during the dry summer months, helping to sustain low stream flows
and perhaps to some degree even recharge aquifers.
Christmas trees provide rural jobs in America
 The
environmental story of Christmas trees is unlike many others. Christmas
tree farming is very labor intensive, by today's standards, remarkably
so. Not only does this mean less equipment on the land but it generates
lots of stable employment in rural areas. The commitment of Christmas
tree growers to this long term crop provides important and predictable
jobs in a farm sector that has seen far too few in recent years.
People's livelihoods matter, and farming Christmas trees provides
an environmentally sustainable avenue of employment in areas moving
away from the extractive industries of the past.
Maintaining our traditions as a culture, especially
around the holidays, sustains and comforts us as human beings. Helping
the environment is also a part of being at peace with the earth, which
is what Christmas, and Christmas trees are all about.
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