It was an unlikely place for worlds to collide, a Master Gardener meeting in northern Wisconsin at the height of autumn. The long fingers of twilight played on the windows, forcing the group’s president to press through the crowded conference room to draw the curtains. Arlen Albrecht, of the Wisconsin Chapter of Partners of the Americas, was setting up the Power Point presentation. To his left sat the guest of honor, the person we had all come to see, Maria from Nicaragua.

She didn’t seem all that different from us sitting there beside Arlen. Granted, she was a little darker and much thinner than most of us; other than that, there was nothing about her that hinted at the adventure she had embarked on, nothing in her humbled silence that suggested she was about to change my view of the world.

Maria’s World

Once the curtains were closed, the viewing screen in place, and the coffee poured, Arlen formally introduced Maria and began his Power Point presentation on a country far away, both in distance and development. Nicaragua is the largest, but most sparsely populated country in South America, with a total land mass of about 50,000 square miles (Infoplease 2007). A quick look at the birth and infant mortality rates explains the low population growth of 1.9 %. The birth rate stands at 24.5/1000 while the infant mortality rate is 28.1/1000 (Infoplease 2007). In this underdeveloped nation of 5,500,000 people, infancy is a treacherous time of life.

Indigenous people of Nicaragua have very large families. Maria told us (with Arlen translating, she speaks no English) that she has 10 children living and two who died at birth or shortly thereafter. Women in rural Nicaragua are under great pronatalist pressure to bear children to replace aging members and those who have died. Children are viewed as valuable workers and contributors to the family. In Nicaragua, 53% of the population is under 18 (UNICEF 2007).

Poverty is rampant in Nicaragua. Continued environmental degradation compounds the situation. The harvesting of firewood from Nicaragua’s tropical rainforests and tropical seasonal forests contributes to growing deforestation. Worldwide firewood accounts for nearly half of all wood harvested. In Nicaragua, most of the harvested wood is used for cooking.

Maria and all the women in her village used to spend hours each day cooking for their large families in poorly ventilated kitchens with open fires. This practice causes carbon monoxide, particulates, and cancer-causing hydrocarbons to reach toxic levels inside of cramped homes. Breathing these particulates can cause lung cancer and other serious respiratory ailments. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that half the world’s population, nearly 2.5 billion people, is affected by this form of indoor air pollution .

It is estimated that firewood produces 800,000 metric tons of soot worldwide each year . The noxious particles released into the atmosphere from burning wood are darker than those produced by grassland or forest fires, because of this they absorb light and quickly increase atmospheric temperatures.

Today Maria and every woman in her tiny village cooks on an enclosed wood/corn burning  stove with a chimney, thanks to the efforts of Arlen Albrecht and Partners of the Americas. This group raised the funds to build a stove for every home in the tiny hamlet of Buenos Aires, Nicaragua (not to be confused with Buenos Aires, Brazil). Volunteers built the stoves in 30 small homes and trained the residents to use them properly. Maria said most of the coughing among the women has stopped, and the children don’t get ill as often as they used to.

The new wood stoves help slow the consumption of Nicaragua’s resources. Over 50% of Nicaragua’s rainforests have been harvested in the last fifty years. Logging has caused erosion of the exposed forest floor, leaving rivers and streams suffocating with silt. As bad as this is for the nation’s fishing industry, it is even worse for the air quality.

Deforestation is directly responsible for changing  precipitation patterns. The tall canopy of the forest transpires, keeping vast amounts of moisture available for wind currents to carry into the atmosphere as rain. The dense forest also helps to moderate the temperature near the ground. With so many trees harvested for export, the land is barren and vulnerable. In the coming years the average temperature of Nicaragua is expected to rise 3° C and rainfall is expected to decrease 25%.

Deforestation  is effecting  Maria’s family and the people of her village. They eek out a living by farming a few acres and hunting for food in the forest. As the forest around them disappears, so does the wildlife they depend on for food. Tapirs, deer, buffalo, and wild turkeys move deeper into the old-growth forests when their habitat is destroyed. The remaining land makes poor cropland because of the ensuing erosion, leaving indigenous people unable to provide food for themselves.

Nicaragua’s President enacted a ban on logging in 2006; the government has yet to enforce it. After the years of conflict in the 1980’s, the government is still counting on Nicaragua’s rich forest resources for economic growth. This slash and burn style of management is creating great environmental hardships for the people of Nicaragua.

My World

The United States has a land mass of 3,794, 083 square miles, nearly seven times that of Nicaragua. The 2000 Census reports that there are over 300 million people in the United States. We are not a sparsely populated nation by anyone’s measure. The birth and infant mortality rates are much different here than they are in Nicaragua. In 2004, the birth rate for the United States reflected a decade of decline with 14/1000 births, while the infant mortality rate held steady at 6/1000. As I grappled with these numbers, the seriousness of Maria’s life began to dawn on me. She has it rough, much rougher than I had previously imagined.

Here in the United State, where women are better educated and have opportunities to earn a salary, families are smaller. Socioeconomic status is inversely related to reproduction in developed countries . In developed countries, wealthy people have fewer children. In the United States children are often seen as status symbols, requiring parents to spend lavishly on them. The average American family spends $15,000.00 a year on each child. This isn’t the case in Nicaragua.

Our homes are much different than the average Nicaraguan’s. American homes use much more energy than those in Nicaragua. Appliances and electronics are responsible for 25% of the average household’s energy usage. In 2003 the average American used 923.5 kilograms of oil equivalent (kgoe) per person, while Nicaraguans used only 269.4 kgoe per person .

Instead of cooking on a wood stove, most Americans use a gas or electric range. While we aren’t subject to indoor air-pollution caused by thick particulates from wood smoke, we are by no means free of indoor contaminants. On the whole, Americans spend more time inside than outside . More time indoors means more exposure to the chemicals used to produce the vast amounts of consumer goods we stuff into our homes. In newer homes, compounds like chloroform, formaldehyde, and styrene can be seventy times higher than outdoors. In older homes, molds, dangerous radon gas, and lead paint pose serious health risks to those who spend large blocks of time inside.

Cigarette smoke is another dangerous contributor to indoor air pollution. Twenty percent of all deaths in the United States were from diseases caused by smoking. Recently, the government has taken steps to curtail smoking in public places, including those privately owned. As a result, cigarette consumption has dropped nearly fifty percent (Infoplease 2007).

Like Nicaragua, the United States has rich timber resources, but we differ drastically in our conservation structures. Our government often meanders between utilitarian conservation, which views resources from an economic point of view, and biocentric preservation, which views resources in a moral context. Nonetheless, in the United States, we care about our natural resources, especially our national forests.

In the United States there are 155 protected national forests, on about 190 million acres . Compared with Nicaragua’s 1.8 million acres this seems like a huge amount of designated protected public land, but it is only 8.5% of the US land mass.

Unlike the people of Nicaragua, who depend on their forests for food, Americans depend on their forests for recreation. The nation’s parks are visited over 280 million times each year. All of the nation’s parks have unacceptable levels of carbon monoxide in the air, caused by heavy traffic through the preserved areas.

Many of the nation’s parks are also wild life refuges. These preserves are home to many protected species, but most aren’t large enough to support a viable population of large predators, such as grizzly bears . One of the solutions to this problem would be to bring more land into the park system; thereby lessening the stress on migratory animals. However, most of the land in the United States is privately owned, making acquiring new land difficult.

The Collision

Arlen’s presentation was winding up; as I sat waiting for the lights to come on and the discussion to begin, I was focused on the differences between my world and Maria’s. I could feel the stirrings of bewilderment in the back of my mind. This whole experience must have been overwhelming for her. Other than a visit to Managua here and there, she had never traveled. She had never been on a plane before. She had never seen a forest turn color in autumn, she had never known on-demand water or electricity, and now she found herself in a northern rural American community during the peak color of fall. What did she think of us?

I wasn’t the only one considering the enormity of the query; when Arlen asked if anyone had any questions for Maria, someone in the back blurted it out.

With Arlen translating at lightening speed, Maria explained her fascination with all the machines she had seen. It seemed to her we had machines to do everything, the farm work, the garden chores, and the household chores. While she was staying with Arlen and his wife, she learned about microwaves, food processors, smooth-surfaced electric ranges, clothes washers and dryers, and her favorite machine of them all-the dishwasher. The glee in her eyes was child like, she was genuinely awed by the technology we take for granted every day.

I was amused at the thought of being in her shoes; experiencing technology in all its grandeur for the first time. It’s the stuff of science fiction films, first contact with an alien society. As enthralled as I was, I was still keenly aware of how different our worlds were. I didn’t think it was possible for me to see her as anything other than a visitor from a distant place with no connection to me.

I began to think differently once the questions turned to gardening, as questions are apt to do at Master Gardener meetings. It turned out Maria was an avid gardener. Through Arlen, and using animated gestures, she told our group about large watermelons, and sweet tomatoes growing in her garden in Nicaragua. It was at that point I began to appreciate our shared interest in the natural world. Through a shared understanding of gardening I came to understand how we impact each other and our shared environment, even at a distance.

I watched the President address the American people from the Oval Office last night. He took the long way around, but he did answer the question that every one wants answered—how do we stop the underground river of oil from emptying into the life-giving ocean? We don’t. The problem, according to the President, is beyond the scope of human technology. Apparently, in our vast, ever-evolving intelligence we have figured out how to destroy just about everything. Fixing the things we destroy, that’s a different story.

This morning, I listened as an oil worker from Louisiana explained the economic impact of the moratorium on off-shore drilling. I understand that this spells economic doom for Louisiana, but how can we justified continuing if we admittedly don’t have the wherewithal to fix a problem should it arise? Sure, we can get to the oil, and we can get it out, but what if there’s another explosion? I’m not suggesting that a moratorium on drilling should be permanent. I am however, suggesting that each and every step of the process—from the construction of the rig to the availability of emergency response and clean-up equipment—be examined, and corrected where need be. This could take awhile, but probably no where near as long as it’s going to take to clean up the mess from a raging river of underground oil unleashed by technology that is obviously controlling us rather than the other way around.

We broke it. We bought it. We’re stuck with it. The question now becomes one of time. How long will this suffocating sludge continue to surge from the bowels the Earth? It’s possible, even though no one wants to say it out loud, that BP’s relief well—the one that’s supposed to come online in August and divert the oil from the broken pipe to a new one—won’t work. They are trying to hit a seven-inch target a mile down. All of the experts agree that this is a difficult proposition, at best. It could fail. Then what? Anything short of success, any unforeseen and unintended consequences will surely be beyond our scope of technology. What we don’t know will surely kill us.

I’ve been reading up on oak wilt. Not because I want to, but because I’ve been hearing talk of the disease spreading. The north woods of Wisconsin, Michigan and western Minnesota have had little problem so far, but this could be changing. A good portion of the Midwest has been affected by oak wilt.

The disease is caused by a fungus. It invades the tree’s veins and blocks the movement of water, like a plugged artery. The water movement within the tree is slowed or stopped. The leaves wilt then fall off. The first sign of trouble usually occurs in the spring or summer, but infection can also occur in the fall, usually through wounds. The leaves of affected trees turn partially brown and droop.

Red oaks are far more susceptible to wilt than white oaks.  They loose their leaves rapidly after the onset of wilt, usually within three weeks. A red oak can die in as little as six weeks after being infected. Red oaks that are contaminated this fall will lose some of their leaves now and quickly lose those that come out next spring, sealing their fate.

The progression is much slower in white oaks, whose leaves fall from several branches each season. With proper care white oaks can survive an infection.

The disease is spread underground and overland. Underground it spreads through the interconnected roots of healthy and diseased trees. These roots become grafted together allowing the infection to pass into the tissue of the healthy tree. Since red oak roots graft more readily than white oak, this species is more vulnerable. Infected red oaks rarely pass the fungus to white oaks via root grafts.

Believe it or not, removing an infected tree will not control the spread of wilt. According to the experts it may even hasten the process. The best way to deal with the problem is to install a root graft barrier. This isn’t easy. It requires the services of a forester who specializes in this area.

Overland the disease is spread by beetles. Oaks that were infected and died in the previous season, then left standing, attract sap feeding beetles. Large clumps of the fungus under the bark force it to crack open. The fungus produces a sweet odor that attracts beetles. After they’ve had a look around they fly off to the healthy oaks and feed on sap from fresh wounds.

Experts warn not to prune or trim oaks from April 15 to October 1 to help prevent overland infections.

Wood from infected trees is fine as firewood, as long as you burn it all before spring. If that’s not possible you will either need to debark the wood or cover it tightly with a tarp. Beetles can spread the disease from a woodpile just as easily as they can from a standing dead tree.

A healthy stand of oaks is breath taking in autumn. Red oaks have vibrant crimson leaves that fall off the tree then turn brown. White oaks produce pale red leaves which turn brown and stay on the tree all winter.

If you have an oak that isn’t looking so great this fall call your local DNR office for the best advice on how to proceed.