PrimalNature.org

4/27/08  Coastal Cypress Trees: Their Value and the Campaign to Save Them

    To acquire cypress trees for mulch, timber companies logged 80,000 acres of cypress forest in Louisiana in six years.  Because of the work of members of the Save Our Cypress, www.saveourcypress.org, the logging has been reduced to "a trickle," Dean Wilson, basin keeper of Atchafalaya swamp reports.  Wal Mart was the first large company to agree to stop selling cypress mulch.  Then Lowe's established a moratorium on selling cypress harvested from certain areas. The major holdout is Home Depot, which is reportedly still shaping a policy.  

    Cypress trees have lateral root systems that enable them to stand up in a hurricane and also to support neighboring trees.  A study of damage from Hurricane Katrina, carried out by scientists from Tulane University and the University of New Hampshire, estimated that in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, bottomland hardwood forests with oak, sweetgum, and maple suffered up to eighty-five percent mortality, but that cypress-tupelo forest experienced little damage.  Besides providing irreplaceable wildlife habitat, the cypress-tupelo forests are thus the best means of stabilizing the coastline and of regenerating wetland ecosystems.  

    Mulch made of more renewable sources such as pine bark and pecan shells are more acceptable alternatives to cypress mulch and just as good for the garden, as cypress mulch is not rot or termite resistant as often stated.  Best of all, is mulch from materials in your own garden, as it does not need to be transported.   

Sources:

Behar, Michael. "Louisiana's Mulch Madness."   Mother Jones, March/April 2008.  Available at http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2008/03/louisianas-mulch-madness.html .

Chambers, Jeffrey Q. et al. "Hurricane Katrina's Carbon Footprint on U.S. Gulf Coast Forests." Abstract of an article published in Science, Vol 318, no. 5853 (November 16, 2007), p. 1107.  Available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5853/1107 .

National Atmospheric and Space Administration.  "Forests Damaged by Hurricane Katrina Become Major Carbon Source," posted November 15, 2007. Available at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2007/katrina_carbon.html .

"Pulp Fact," Audubon, May-June 2008, p. 26.

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