Section 52.15 of the ANSI A300 (Part 5)-2012 defines the phrase suitability for conservation as: A relative rating system that combines tree health and structure with species tolerance of development activities.

Infrastructure in the urban environment changes often. When it comes to trees and construction, this rating can ultimately mean that a tree lives, or a tree dies, and is sometimes included in a management plan or tree inventory.

For a tree lover, rating trees as suitable for life or death can be the saddest business in the world.

In Annex A to Part 5 of the standard, the suitability for conservation ratings are defined as follows:

Good: Trees in this category are in good health and structural stability and have the potential for longevity at the site.

Moderate: Trees in this category are in fair health and/or have structural defects that may be mitigated with treatment. These trees may require more intense management and monitoring, and may have shorter life-spans than those in the ‘good’ category.

Poor: Trees in this category are in poor health or have significant defects in structure that cannot be mitigated with treatment. These trees can be expected to decline regardless of management. The species or individual tree may possess characteristics that are uncompatible or undesirable in landscape settings or be unsuited for the intended use of the site.

Good. Moderate. Poor.

Those three words drag off my tongue like sandpaper. Sadly. In tree reports and management plans and inventories all across the world this is taking place. Trees being judged on their stability, their projected lifespans, their undesirability.

I am imagining people watching from their windows as this happens, watching the man or the woman in the hardhat with the red pen (or red touchscreen for that modern matter). The tree expert. But what does that expert know about that tree? A bunch of big words describing complex processes. An unbiased view as formal as an aerial photograph.

People that grew up under those trees, the people watching in the windows, they can remember the way it’s flowers smelt in the spring on the way to work, maybe they had their high school prom photos taken under the shade of its leaves. The light casted through the canopy and danced onto the young hearts in the picture. A mom or a grandpa or an uncle planted it young, maybe with the birth of a child, with high hopes and a small feeling of accomplishment for an hour or two.

That tree is summed up somewhere as Moderate. Because it needs a bit of care. Some support in its age. Because its lifespan is projected to be shorter than the trees in the next best category. Because now all of sudden we can tell fortunes and read the palm of the future.

Somewhere someone is worried about liability.

And maybe there will be a board member or a city official or a tree crew somewhere that decides that the story of that tree is no longer.  A stump ground down. Dust to dust.

This is the politics of trees. Unfortunately, the urban forest is commanded by the people that live there and govern there. Sometimes trees take center stage, and sometimes they get thrown in the gutter. It’s not always pretty.

Sometimes it’s hard to be the person in the helmet with the red pen and the big names for the processes. Bucking up memories and throwing them into the back of a truck, a tiny chip clung to a pair of oily chaps. Not as pretty as the memories someone else has of the planting, the spring, the picture. It’s enough to take your breath away.

The Sutiability for Conservation may or may not be the end of the road for the tree, but it will never be the end of the story.

Wonderful. Magical. Indestructible.