It's with

more than passing interest that I follow Fayette County's

and Fayetteville's search for ways to save more trees

from the bulldozer.

One of the

first stories I covered when I burst onto the community

journalism scene in 1972 was about trees. A group of

residents was enraged over a developer's plan to put a

convenience store at the entrance to their neighborhood,

and to destroy a large stand of trees in the process.

The

convenience store was on the plat when construction of

the neighborhood was approved, and the land was zoned

commercial at the same time. None of the residents had

bothered to find that out before they bought their

houses. It's an old story.

But what

made it interesting was the residents' passion for the

trees. They got organized and lined up in front of the

bulldozer, and I got some great photos by climbing a pile

of debris behind the line of residents and trees and

shooting down at the angry bulldozer operator bearing

down on them.

The

residents broke ranks, of course, and left me on top of

the pile of debris as the bulldozer bore down on me. I

was younger back then, and managed to scramble down in

time to avoid being buried under a stack of freshly

bulldozed pine trees.

Since then,

I've covered the same story, with minor changes in

detail, dozens of times.

There's

something inside most of us that doesn't like to see a

tree die, no matter how much we may believe in free

enterprise and private property rights.

So

officials are trying to walk a fine line, writing an

ordinance that will save as many of Fayette's fine old

oak trees as possible without completely obliterating

people's right to do as they wish with their property.

Like most

conservatives, I'm suspicious of the liberal mind set

that always sees a crisis and therefore a need for larger

government with more control and less freedom for the

individual.

I'm told,

for instance, that Atlanta Magazine had an article in a

recent edition in which the shocking news was reported

that trees are being destroyed in the greater Atlanta

area faster than in the Amazon rain forests.

I wasn't

able to find the article on the magazine's web site to

find out how the reporter arrived at this devastating

revelation. I wonder whether apples are being compared

with apples, or whether this is another liberal media

attempt to frighten us into giving up our freedom.

But

regardless of the accuracy and applicability of this

particular report, I think most of us can agree that we

would prefer to see as many of the region's older trees

preserved as possible.

We may or

may not agree on how much control our local governments

should exercise in order to achieve that result, let

alone how much control the state and federal governments

should be allowed.

Georgia's

Gov. Roy hath decreed that 10 percent of land throughout

the state be set aside for green space, which certainly

will save some trees. We have yet to see whether his

honor will back up his green space decree with some green

backs to help pay for it, and whether he is willing to

use the right of eminent domain to force land owners to

give up potential profit they could earn by building

shopping malls and neighborhoods on their land instead of

selling it to the government for parks and preserves.

But then,

there are other ways to achieve the desired result.

One

example: While expressing concern for Fayette's trees and

ordering that the county tree preservation ordinance be

studied and strengthened, the Fayette County Commission

responded with bored yawns recently as advocates

presented the idea of passing new zoning laws that

encourage a creative approach to neighborhood design.

Instead of

carpeting Fayette with two-acre lots, this approach would

encourage developers to put the houses one one-acre or

even smaller lots, but carving out large areas of

undisturbed land as a trade-off. If the zoning called for

five-acre lots, for instance, the developer could still

put only 20 homes on a 100-acre property, but might put

those 20 homes on 30 acres, leaving ten acres for streets

and utilities, and 60 acres of untouched woods.

Instead of

moving forward on that idea, which would truly accomplish

some of what we want to see without infringing on

anyone's freedom, we're focusing our efforts on laws

designed to save one or two trees per commercial

development.

I'm not by

any means suggesting that I oppose the efforts to write

tougher tree preservation rules into the development

regulations, but the situation does remind one of the old

saw about not seeing the forest for the trees.

More on

this later.

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