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What is the environmental story behind Christmas
trees? 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 is this something we can enjoy
guilt free.
 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 this product 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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