Bizcuits | Putting down roots

Leanda Lee

Sands has assessed that a sufficiently respectful time has passed to celebrate their tenth birthday, after putting aside plans for the party which were wiped from the schedule by typhoon Hato. Most of the damage in Hato’s aftermath has been cleaned up and life has generally returned to normality. One exception is many of our city’s trees.

The typhoon had reportedly damaged 10,000 trees of which about 40 percent had to be destroyed. IACM was said to have dealt with 15 thousand tons of green waste. At the time, the photos of trees fallen over depicted the horror of the force of the storm and damage to property. An additional sadness was the loss to the community of those trees, the living assets that provide an incredible array of amenity. Our urban existence has largely forgotten what that amenity is.

Trees in the natural landscape have multiple roles. They provide food and shelter, some have medicinal uses. They harbour animals, birds, beneficial insects. Their root systems maintain the soil structure, stopping erosion (planting of mangroves has been repeatedly recommended for Macau’s coast), their leaves mulch, further protecting the soil and feeding it, helping to maintain stable micro-environments teaming with mycelium, bacteria, microbes and other mutually beneficial life which in turn convert nutrients into more readily accessible forms for plants. Trees provide shade, cooling the environment. They slow evaporation and draw nutrients from deeper in the ground so to condition the soil for smaller plants to access moisture and grow. They create wind barriers and beautiful visual borders.

The humble tree has form, function and beauty well recognised by Macau. In 2013 the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau published a book on the charm of our trees to highlight the value of these – many ancient – physical assets.

Yet, those pictures of timber toppled by Hato, root balls sheered by slabs of concrete, suggest that we may not have planted suitably. There was mention of the wrong choice of species leading to inadequacy of taproots to stabilise. Most mature trees, however, develop a fibrous root system that acts as a tripod stabilising the trees – the ubiquitous taproot is a myth. Even naturally tap-rooted trees when in shallow soil with other barriers (as in urban streetscapes) will not grow characteristically deep roots. We might do better in the selection of species but with soil barely visible, let alone breathing a yard from the truck, a root system that should extend beyond a tree’s dripline is hardly capable of being developed. Feed and tend the soil and the plant will look after itself.

Urbanites, living in smaller homes with less outdoor space, still need green environments for health and well-being.  The fall-out from Hato brings with it an opportunity to rethink our green-scapes, even to encourage the community to become involved in greening projects. Perhaps community gardens right within the lived community and even some progress towards self-sufficiency and food security would not be beyond the realms of possibility. We can think beyond parks and gardens, beyond the street trees or verge plantings. We have more vertical space and rooftops in residential centres than all the other space combined.

Grants and subsidies to community groups, individuals and property managers for greening projects have been successfully used in other global cities to harness people’s desire to work communally together (as Hato has shown us we can do), grow something beautiful and can harness many of the functions of trees and natural landscapes that we are missing out on.

The people’s Urban Forest – as symbiotic as a natural one, creating a stronger community, and breathing life back into our environment.