June 4, 2003

  • I just discovered one of the many things I like about Canada is the Tree Book, guide to various types of trees created by the BC government’s Ministry Of Forests.

    I thought: The US has to have something similar… So I looked around for it. I started with the US Department Of The Interior, whose website looks like one of those Photoshop how-to tutorials.

    There, I learned that June 17th is the centennial of the Bureau Of Reclamation. This is the bureau that sought to address the increased water needs in the American west by damming up rivers and digging canals. Yay. But I didn’t learn how to identify trees.

    I also learned that we just passed the centennial of the Fish And Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System. Yay! I can imagine the debates going on and on, contentious politicians arguing about whether they should focus on public works or conservation. What a great debate it must have been.

    I did find a number of ID-your-tree guides, but none put out by governmental agencies. And it wasn’t for trying.

    So it seems Canada has us beat! Perhaps the US government believes tree identification to be a terror-enabling skill. After all, who would care but some eco-terrorist?