Planting My Own Tree

“There are three things that every person should do during their life: plant a tree, have a child, and write a book.” —José Martí

We need to take care of the Earth if we want to continue existing at the same time as her. We were always taught at school from an early age how important our planet should be to us and that we must take care of it by giving talks about it. But those talks were really superficial. They never told us how to help other than by learning to recycle and not to waste water. Obviously, if we make these things as part of our daily routine, it can help a lot, but when you’re a child, it is not so easy to create a habit, which means that when we grow up, we do them only occasionally. This is not a real help, or at least not a significant one. If we really want to help our planet, we need to plant trees. So, in this blog entry, I’m going to talk about my experience getting a tree to reforest for a project and how complicated it was; then, I’ll share with you the whole process of planting a tree; and finally, I will tell you why it’s so important to reforest.

When our teacher told the whole class that for our mid-semester final project we were going to plant trees together, I was so surprised because I had never had the opportunity to plant a tree in real life before, or, to be honest, I had never looked for one. Months passed and May arrived, all the class was so excited to go on a trip, but that didn’t happen. Our trip was canceled, and we couldn’t do anything about it. The thing here is that it wasn’t a trip just to have fun; we needed to make a magazine with our experience as a project, so we had to start thinking about what else we could do. Doubts like, “How are we going to do it?” and “Should we change our topic completely?” started to come one by one because we were running out of time. But fortunately, we found a solution. Instead of going together to plant trees, each one would plant them individually! So we did that. Obviously, although I wish we had carried out our first choice, this was fun too and a really satisfactory experience.

I didn’t expect that the whole process of planting a tree was going to be that easy, more so for me because I don’t like outdoor activities, but it was, and I was really amazed. After we decided to plant a tree individually, I started looking for options where I could get my tree, maybe someone who was donating trees or, as a last option, where I could buy one. Luckily, thanks to one classmate, I was able to buy it at an affordable price; it was a cypress tree. On Saturday, me and a friend went to plant our trees together, which made the experience funnier than I expected. I only followed the traditional steps, and everything went very well. I dug a hole in the ground, just where my cypress would be, then placed it very carefully, covered it with the remaining soil, and tried to secure it well. In the end, I watered it with the necessary water, and that's it! For someone whose relationship with plants is not the best, it was a process that I would like to repeat someday.

It's amazing how reforestation can make you feel alive while, at the same time, creating a life. Our planet right now has more than 3 billion trees on its surface, and that sounds like a big number, right? Well, let me tell you, that is not enough. This is due to the constant deforestation that takes place in various parts of the world, often illegally. Obviously, sometimes deforestation is necessary because, like us, trees have their own cycle of life. But the problem here is doing these practices for selfish purposes or using trees as a method of consumption. Trees are our partners in this life, and we need to treat them with respect. And that only leads us to one conclusion: we need to plant more trees. Reforestation is important because it helps us prevent the loss of ecosystems, stop the deterioration of the planet, and gradually stop greenhouse gases as well, making this planet a kinder place to live for all of us.

In summary, we can say that reforestation is an activity that every one of us should practice frequently if we want to help our planet to stay alive for many more years and ensure a better future for the next generations. Planting trees is an activity that takes a lot of time, care, and commitment. This could be the reason why people don’t try to research more about how they can learn to reforest. But if you want to take good action for the planet and your life, you should plant some trees. While we plant, apart from saving the planet, we can leave our mark on the world and realize how beautiful nature is.