{"id":116651,"date":"2016-01-26T21:17:15","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T21:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/01\/26\/a-tale-of-trees-and-espionage-3\/"},"modified":"2016-01-26T21:17:15","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T21:17:15","slug":"a-tale-of-trees-and-espionage-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/01\/26\/a-tale-of-trees-and-espionage-3\/","title":{"rendered":"a tale of trees and espionage"},"content":{"rendered":"

emberglows<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

okay story time:<\/p>\n

my professor (lovely man, married to our TA, 5’2", about as intimidating as a muffin) is a dendrologist by trade, so he studies trees. it was about three hours into our social sciences course, last lecture before exams, everyone was frazzled and exhausted, so he told us about his most exciting\/in-depth research to date to cheer us up.<\/p>\n

(the few of us who actually showed up were like \u201cok sir im sure its fascinating\u201d but in our minds we were totally like its trees what. is. exciting. about trees<\/i>. You might be wondering the same thing – the acorns? the leaves? the roots?\u00a0BUT NO.<\/b> IMMA FUCKIN TELL YA.)<\/p>\n

ANYWAY we settle in, he had a few pictures loaded up from his field work (we were chuckling at this point\u2026. \u2018hehehe field work\u2019 i giggled to my frend. its trees<\/i>.) and began to tell his tale. it\u2019s long, imma warn you, but\u2026\u2026. god. just read it.<\/p>\n

theres an species of tree called the cucumber tree (Magnolia acuminata<\/i>, if ya wanna get all Latin-y). its super endangered, in our region there\u2019s only ~280 that are registered by the government, yadda yadda yadda. my prof thought that was tragic (i know) <\/strike>but also strange, because when he was writing his thesis about local trees years ago, he kept coming across cucumber trees in really random places. we\u2019re talking like backyards, independently-owned nurseries, etc. WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE<\/b> because, according to tree law (i know)<\/strike> it is very strictly protected by the government, and thus super \u201cillegal to possess, transport, collect, buy or sell any part of a living or dead member of a listed species if it originates from wild sources.\u201d<\/i> essentially, the govt takes control over growing the trees and anyone who independently raises them is breaking the law (i know)<\/strike><\/p>\n

so he\u2019d ask people \u201cdo you have a permit for these trees?\u201d and they were like \u201cuh no, it\u2019s just a tree someone sold me, i think it looks nice, are you gonna arrest me?\u201d so he\u2019d be like \u201cnah nah nah just tell me who sold it to you\u201d<\/p>\n

eventually, months\/years<\/i> later, someone did, and turns out it was like this underground sort-of illegal tree dealing club<\/b> (i know)<\/strike>. so my prof went, got a bit of funding from the government, who were getting pissed at independent cucumber tree numbers, and THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTO THE GOOD SHIT I STG.<\/p>\n

he infiltrates<\/i> the tree trafficking organization. he buys a cucumber tree from an independent nursery, raises it for months<\/i>, ensures he gets noticed by the traffickers, and then INFILTRATES<\/b> it and convinces its leader to LET HIM JOIN.<\/b><\/i> he has to pay like a steep entrance fee, which he does (and it blows my mind that the government of my country paid money to illegal tree dealers), but then he is given full access to records and maps because they think he\u2019s one of them, not a SECRET AGENT.<\/p>\n

now this part blows my mind because the tree lords don\u2019t even have to try very hard to find cucumber trees because government agents MARK <\/b>THE TREES <\/b>AND DISTINCTLY TAG THEM <\/b>SAYING THIS IS ENDANGERED DO NOT TOUCH<\/i>. so, ya know\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026. it\u2019s a bit <\/i>obvious. my prof hangs out with the members so much that he figures out their \u201chit spots\u201d. these are where the trees are relatively secluded and unguarded. (he writes all this shit and numbers down for his research.)<\/p>\n

BUT THATS NOT ENOUGH BECAUSE THE GOVT SAYS HES WASTING THEIR FUNDING IF HE DOESNT HAVE PROOF and they are willing to take LEGAL ACTION for misuse of funding (my prof doesn\u2019t have the money nore time nor power to take them to court, which would also blow his cover). so my prof literally STAKES OUT <\/b>a copse of cucumber trees at a recognized wildlife reserve for. DAYS<\/i><\/b>. he camps there, and watches the trees, is about to give up, he\u2019s going off an unreliable rumor from the traffickers that a harvester would be going there within the next week. finally, this guy comes and takes the cucumber tree seeds from the CLEARLY MARKED<\/i> trees by the government, and my prof takes pictures (we are shown these pictures, most of us are speechless at this point). dozens of candid shots of a man my grandpa\u2019s age<\/i> with a grocery store bag, garden shears, and a ladder, clipping away the illegal seeds and then going on his merry fucking way.<\/p>\n

so my prof has the proof, he\u2019s been undercover for months now at this point, he writes up his report, gives it to the government who is like\u2026\u2026.. \u201coh shit\u201d, helps them draft up a new LESS COMPLETELY FUCKING OBVIOUS way of marking endangered trees (so that way non-tree-lovers wouldn\u2019t damage them further, etc.), and then never returns to the tree traffickers. he\u2019d given them a fake name, address, everything\u2026.. he disappears<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u2026there was a full minute of stunned silence from us students at this point, during which he grew more and more nervous (again, he\u2019s a muffin) and all of us students are just like\u2026\u2026. \u201cwhoa<\/i>.\u201d we asked him what happened to the remaining illegal cucumber trees & if he turned the tree dealers in to the government, and that is when he smiles a little bit and shows us the last few pictures. because here\u2019s the kicker\u2026\u00a0he never turned the smugglers in.<\/b>\u00a0he burned<\/i> all the data he collected, defied<\/i> the government pressuring him to turn them in, and the only reason he\u2019s not incarcerated <\/i>is because his work is so prominent in certain circles now & universities love him, that there would be an uproar if he got arrested. he\u2019s like a fucking anti-hero<\/i> and then he tells us (i\u2019ll never forget, it\u2019s the most inspirational green-thumb thing in the world) \u201cit may be \u2018illegal\u2019, but those who risk their liberty to ~save the world~<\/i>\u00a0should never <\/i>be reprimanded, no matter what those in power say.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

we are all stunned<\/i>. some of us are considering dendrology as a field we\u2019d now be interested in pursuing. he clicks his slide one final time, before we leave our last lecture and, since he had an asthma attack (lil muffin) he didn\u2019t attend our exam, so i never see him again\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

and there, on the slides, the last picture? THERE HE IS<\/i>. in his own backyard. with his equally lovely TA wife. both grinning innocently, standing underneath a\u2026\u2026. FUCKING. FULL GROWN. ILLEGAL<\/i>. CUCUMBER TREE.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

emberglows: okay story time: my professor (lovely man, married to our TA, 5’2", about as intimidating as a muffin) is a dendrologist by trade, so he studies trees. it was about three hours into our social sciences course, last lecture before exams, everyone was frazzled and exhausted, so he told us about his most exciting\/in-depth … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “a tale of trees and espionage”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[14126,403,4,458],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}