Stealing An Empress: Illegal Harvesting Of Maryland Paulownia Trees For The Asian Bridal Industry

With blades and ropes, they came for her in the night. Neighbors heard only the roar of a motor and the squeal of the getaway, before awakening to find their empress was gone.

It has been several years now since local police have logged reports for any stolen Paulownia trees, also known as the empress or princess trees, but the inconspicuous plant is still widely cherished in the Far East because of its traditional and mystical functions. Continue reading Stealing An Empress: Illegal Harvesting Of Maryland Paulownia Trees For The Asian Bridal Industry

Harford County People Love Nurturing Trees

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Forestry Board recently announced the winners of the 2007 PLANT - People Loving And Nurturing Trees - Awards. A dozen Harford County entities received PLANT awards this year, including local governments, schools, community organizations and even military installations.

People Loving And Nurturing Trees (PLANT) is a statewide award program to recognize communities for their tree planting and tree care efforts. Communities range from schools, homeowner organizations and parks to metropolitan areas, cities and towns.

There are four PLANT award levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Green. Successive levels require more formalized tree care activities. Although a community may remain at any level for an unlimited number of years, the goal of the program is to encourage a community to grow through the award levels by strengthening their commitment and care for their urban trees.

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Fear and Loathing at Campsite 100

The weekend started like this: me, stopping the car at an intersection in the middle of a 44,000-acre state forest, gray dust rolling past the windows. “Do you want to try it?” I backed up the car and eased the 1997 Nissan Maxima (manual, with spoiler) onto the brown dirt ski slope that is Kirk Road. A Coleman lantern, filled to the brim with kerosene, dangled from the rear view mirror. There was an hour of daylight left, and as battery acid leeched into my veins, I pushed the car harder and harder up and down the impossible rocky hills of the off-road trail.

About five minutes after I had yelled at the guys in the car to shut up, I pulled to a stop at the zenith of a rollercoaster-looking drop-off; I turned off the engine, jumped out and lit a cigarette. Brian and Scott – cooler heads than mine – set off running down the road while I tried to calm down. We were off to a bad start.

Over the next two days we would evade the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police twice, rescue a pair of lost dirt bikers, catch and release a rare wood turtle and a hognose snake, survive an insane 40-mph ride through the woods in the bed of a drunken redneck’s pickup truck, and hone our skills at axe tossing. But first, Brian would have to run off the hippie squatters at Campsite 100, and my poor old sedan would have to traverse the final grueling 400 yards of Kirk Road. Later that night, significantly, after we had laid hotdogs and beans on top of frayed nerves, we hiked out into the black woods, and gazed up at the Milky Way. “How can we see it if we’re in it?” I asked. Not 24 hours later, I was drunkenly calling out foreign moons like Karaoke requests around the fire, imploring the brains among us to retell the icy details: “Do Io again, man…Now do Europa!”