Sunday morning @ 10:30am, April 22nd, 2007
UCSC students have adopted “Tree 9″ as a symbol of the future health of campus’ magnificent natural environment, the surrounding ecosystem and a healthy quality of life for students, wildlife, and UC Santa Cruz itself.
Come play in and around this legendary Douglas Fir tree to call attention to the threat UCSC’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) poses to the campus’ natural beauty, our well-being, and the well-being of the planet.
In this era of global warming, we encourage UCSC to set an enlightened example of environmentally responsible growth, instead of their proposed logging of up to 150 acres of redwoods and other tree species. Current plans violate the mission and spirit of the visionary founders of our unique rural campus. If we act now, if we turn out in large numbers, we can sustain the original vision of UCSC students in harmony with the natural surroundings.
For truly adventuresome souls and to highlight the plight of Tree 9 and the surrounding forest, fine art photographer Jack Gescheidt of “The TreeSpirit Project” will orchestrate another in his ongoing series of images of naked, vulnerable people communing with trees to depict our timeless connection to “these magical beings that sustain us humans,” as he puts it. (See dozens of Jack’s TreeSpirit images at www.TreeSpiritProject.com
Come to be seen and come be counted among the majority that treasures the upper campus’ forests, meadows, flora and fauna and believe these add to the quality of both life and education at UC Santa Cruz. We CAN have both, AND wiser development planning. Come play and celebrate and make art with people who feel as you do about the natural world’s importance in our lives.
There is an alternative to destroying the campus forests and treasured trails network that feed the souls of hikers, runners, mountain bikers and equestrians and link Pogonip, Gray Whale and Wilder Ranch state parks: decentralize UCSC. Expand in Marina where UCSC owns 600 acres, and/or at UCSC property in Mountain View, and/or in Watsonville where wise development is needed. These alternative sites would make the school more accessible and allow for increased student diversity with significantly reduced housing costs.
The landscape – a mosaic of open grasslands, deeply shaded forests, fern-draped ravines, gullies and gulches, and fragrant chaparral-was viewed by the campus planners as an integral part of the architecture, and under the watchful eye of first chancellor Dean McHenry, the campus roads and buildings were designed and sited to conserve many of the larger redwood groves.” Photographer Ansel Adams, a consultant for the new university, offered a planning philosophy: “Remove an absolute minimum of trees, shrubs, and branches;” he said, “nature and use will take care of the rest. Consider public safety but also consider the basic mood of the place. Any manicuring of this area will produce a commonplace effect. Build many trails, reveal many places where a student or a teacher or an administrator could sit in a quiet hour with only redwoods, the grass, the packrat nests, and dead twigs intruding upon his solitude. There are few places on earth where such a phenomenon might occur-other than in national parks and remote wildernesses. To have this opportunity on a campus of a great university is a priceless event”
-Ansel Adams, 1979
