[Pitchwife]

Gods, Bêthberry, that video was heartbreaking. To see such a giant who has endured in strength and beauty for such a long time stripped and dismantled like that... It's so much like watching the decay of a venerable and beloved elder. Very, very sad.

As long as I've had any personal relationship with nature at all trees have stood out to me as special, closer to us humans than any other plant in their gnarled individuality and dignity. Whether Tolkien's passages about trees kindled this feeling or merely amplified it is impossible for me to tell now. I've known trees I considered friends and some that were my teachers and counselors, and whenever I see trees mindlessly felled under some hollow architectural pretence I long for a march of Ents to avenge them. Unfortunately all the Ents seem to have gone tree-ish nowadays, leaving it to us to defend their herds against Saruman's modern imitators.