Taxes, Big trees, and Happy St Andrew's Day

I'm afraid I've missed a week updating this blog - last week was very focused on preparing for a big seminar  on 3oth November presenting my thinking so far to the (academically intimidating) staff at Harvard Forest and and others (including landscape ecology professor and international guru Richard Forman). There's nothing like a big presentation to force your thinking from the vague to the specific, as you try to sum up complicated ideas into pithy sentences. I enjoyed being able to start the presentation with a 'Happy St. Andrew's Day slide, fresh that morning from Scotland, of Jonathan setting off for his school's sponsored walk. 

Happy St. Andrew's Day

It seemed to go well, and we had a long discussion afterwards. One of the striking things I've learned is that in thinking about the effect of climate change and novel pathogen effects on trees, proposals for action have generally been dominated by saving species. A good example is the Torreya, a subtropical conifer native to only a few fragments in Florida, and soon to be lost to rising temperatures. The 'Torreya Guardians' - a group of enthusiasts - have decided to save the species by planting new stands far to the north in North Carolina.

Planting Torreya far outside its 'natural' range

In this case it seems a reasonable thing to do, although I have detected some concern that such 'guerrilla conservation' - i.e. outside formally consultations or programmes - might lead to unfortunate actions elsewhere, since similar processes have given us many damaging invasive species (think grey squirrels). However the key element for me is that such actions may save species (by moving them to another part of a giant continent-sized country), but don't maintain the forest where they're currently found. In small countries/islands like UK and Scotland, there may not be room to do that, and in any case, we probably want to find a way of maintaining our forests where they are now. That's a much bigger challenge.

Last week also saw final bike rides of the year - it's pretty cold now, and the roads have all been salted. Just before the frosts and snows I rode a loop through the tobacco growing country along the Connecticut River, and stopped to have my lunch beneath  the Sunderland Sycamore (Platanus occidentalis - not the European sycamore) - reputed to be the largest tree east of the Mississippi, and anywhere up to 400 years old. 

Sunderland sycamore (wikipedia photo - I forgot my camera!)

Recently measured at 113 feet tall and a with a girth of 25 feet, it has a huge presence. Those figures come courtesy of the Eastern Native Tree Society, a group with the coolest acronym in woodland conservation (one for Tolkien enthusiasts...).

Taxes remain big news here, but nevertheless I was surprised to receive a tax demand for a car tax from the local Town council of Petersham. It's only $12.50, but its part of the system of local Town councils setting tax rates, collection, and spending at a far finer grain than anything that we're used.

Petersham Town common (i.e. green)

The Town of Petersham has a population of about 1300 - broadly comparable to Glen Urquhart where I live. However the range of local responsibilities is much larger, including the Town Police (2 full-time officers), the school, the Board of Health, Fire, Highways, Animal Health and Planning Departments. This strikes a different balance between local accountability and (probably) the efficiency of multiple tiny departments. One of the issues my colleagues here have emphasized is that school spending can vary enormously depending on the local property tax rates. Poorer towns often simply can't pay for public schools as good as those in wealthy towns - which seems likely to entrench privilege and opportunity for the children of residents in more wealthy areas.