Leigh

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
― Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

“Like oak tissues above the ground, oak root systems are massive and built from carbon. But what makes oaks a particularly valuable tool in our fight against climate change is their relationship with mycorrhizal fungi: mycorrhizae make copious amounts of carbon-rich glomalin, a highly stable glycoprotein that gives soil much of its structure and dark color. Oak mycorrhizae deposit glomalin into the soil surrounding oak roots throughout the life of the tree. Every pound of glomalin produced by oak mycorrhizae is a pound of carbon no longer warming the atmosphere, and glomalin remains in soil for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“When rain falls, it starts its inevitable journey to the sea. If this journey is rapid, the rain carries topsoil and pollutants with it to streams and then rivers, which terminate in the earth’s oceans. If rainwater is slowed by vegetation, more of it seeps into the ground rather than rushing into local streams. Such infiltration not only replenishes water tables but also scrubs the water clean of its nitrogen, phosphorus, and heavy metal pollutants. Moreover, slow and steady discharge from water tables into streams and rivers reduces the destructive pulse of stormwater that scours our tributaries of their biota. By virtue of their copious leaf surface area and large root systems, oaks impede rainwater from the moment it condenses out of clouds. Much of the water intercepted by leafy oak canopies (up to 3,000 gallons per tree annually) evaporates before it ever reaches the ground (Cotrone 2014). All this makes oaks one of our very best tools in responsible watershed management.”
― Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

“Our ability to be daring leaders will never be greater than our capacity for vulnerability.”
― Brené Brown, Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.