Saturday, January 16, 2010

Cypress mulch should be outlawed in Arkansas: Cypress can't legally be cut in Arkansas water

Do you know that in 1948 or thereabouts, Arkansas legialater Wayne Hampton of Stuttgart sponsored and managed to get passage of a law saying that no bald cypress trees may be removed if they are growing in water in Arkansas?
So are those containers of cypress mulch acquired legally? Most southern states don't have such rules, so bald cypresses up to 1,000 years old are routinely being cut down to put mulch around plants.
No one has ever explained to me what reason one might have to put mulch around plants. But I know why cypress mulch should not be used. The cypresses will NEVER BE REPLACED.
Bald cypresses need to begin their lives on dry land and at a time when flooding won't occur for 10 years. Who can predict a decadal drought that will allow cypresses to get a start and be ready to spend hundreds of years growing in water?
The use of mulch of any kind encourages climate change. The wild native plants that would appear where mulch is spread would be valuable in the fight against climate change. Mulch of any kind is an abomination. Destroying centuries-old cypresses to help change the climate is so far to the wrong side of logic that I can't imagine how anyone could try to justify it.

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