This story of this 500 year old Karri tree (view photo) unfortunately is a reality according to the online news that I read earlier today. Haven’t heard yet WHY?? It was cut down. If you think about yourself for just a minute and know that you are on this planet most likely for, less than 100 years. Could you then imagine, even contemplating ending the life of something that has been here for 5 times longer than yourself.
To put this into perspective, even on the minutest scale believe it or not (if you look at the bigger picture). This tree would have contributed to YOUR WELL BEING in some way, along with every single person on earth today. Including, the lungs full of fresh air that was NEEDED, to PROVIDE LIFE to make this ACTION POSSIBLE to the VERY PERSON/PEOPLE to CHOP it down.
This news story then reminded me of a song Leanne and I wrote in 2004 after I played at the Nannup music festival in WA (Western Australia). It has never been recorded, however I feel inclined to post the lyrics for you to read.
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To help paint some of the picture. This true story began when we stopped at a small gravel car park. To stand in wonder at our first sighting of WA ‘Karri Trees’. While there, we noticed behind us on the ground, just over the car park pine wood railing. What at first looked like a dead cow that had somehow had its head squashed flat? Then we quickly came to our senses, as this was bush land and miles away from any farm land. Then I saw a tail that was sort of thicker tiger stripped or banded and remembered a photo that I had at home of a ‘wobbegong shark’ (see photo, not mine another site) that was exactly the same. More shark photo’s here
So now we have two pieces, a head and a tail, where was the third piece, the body? Ah, that’s right, when you go fishing (which the coast was not far down the road from here) and you catch one, you only want to eat the middle bit and discard the head and tail. So it looks as if someone had gone fishing, then on their way home pulled into the car park and dumped the pieces of shark that were of no use to them. To see a dismembered shark in bush land!!! Was just the strangest contrasting moment for a long time, if ever?
Shark Amongst The karri Trees
This song is copyright(c)by Leanne Buckley and Russ Aimz 2004
We went for a drive through Margaret River
Where the people grow their vines and crush the grapes into wine
We waved our good-byes to the Indian Ocean
On a scenic trip through majestic trees its cooler there
The sun flickers between the leaves and the branches as we go by And we stopped our car on a bend
We stood there in awe of these trees
We could smell something rotting on the ground in the leaves
We couldn’t believe what we found
So far away from your home in the sea home in the seaWe saw a shark amongst the karri trees lifeless it lay
We saw a shark amongst the karri trees lifeless it lay
We saw a shark amongst the karri trees lifeless it lay
April 2009 update: Felled old-growth tree ‘500 years old’ (This gum tree has had carbon dating test)