Respect the tree of ages

A 1,200-year-old ginkgo tree in Jiading district is being used as an advertising hoarding and as a makeshift site for burnt offerings including candles and joss sticks. The tree's age, and its resultant local fame, means that a lot of the attention it receives is actually endangering its survival.

The district government, to its credit, has created a small park surrounding the tree and named it Ginkgo Tree Park. However, it still appears that certain citizens are not showing it the respect it deserves.

Unscrupulous traders attach advertising posts to its bark and branches, fully aware of how popular an attraction the tree now is. Other citizens believe that by "worshipping" it in the form of burnt offerings at its base, they will somehow be granted luck or fortune.

In other extreme cases it is known that old trees have died because of having their aged bark stripped away and eaten by people who believe it may contain miraculous healing properties. What is common to all the aforementioned citizens is that the wellbeing of this, and other, trees seems to be the last thing on their mind.

Another issue is whether people should be permitted to pick the fruit of the ginkgo tree in autumn.

Roasted ginkgo and pine nuts are among the most popular traditional snacks indulged by people in Shanghai. And the market prices for both types of nut have rocketed to as high as 100 yuan ($16) per kilogram of late. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that some older citizens would rather use a stick to knock such fruit out of a tree for free and which they can then roast at home themselves. Of course, irreparable damage can also be done to trees when they are treated with such disregard by stick-wielding citizens.

However, such people argue that the tree produces fruit precisely in order to be eaten, and that it makes no sense to let it go to waste. They add that the fruit will fall to the ground anyway, where it will be trampled underfoot or flattened by cars, creating a slippery mess that might actually present a danger to passersby.

Quite simply, the local government has failed to address the issues involved and to take effective action, beyond handing out a very occasional warning or fine to citizens found guilty of causing willful damage in the park.

I think the government should make use of modern technology, in the same way that the Shanghai Metro is now doing in its attempts to control begging on the subway.

They could encourage citizens to take photos on their mobile phones and to report instances of misbehavior to the relevant public space management authorities, perhaps to their microblog account.

It's not enough to simply hope that citizens will eventually change their behavior in showing greater respect towards the environment. We need to be proactive in discouraging anti-social behavior in our green spaces. And only in that way can we ensure that treasures like the Jiading ginkgo tree will still be around 1,000 years from now.