Visiting Charleston’s 500-year-old Angel Oak, Alicia Puglionesi mulls over the irony of eco-tourism–namely, “we don’t like to see nature having a rough time”:

It’s no fun to see adorable deer starving to death, or baby birds falling out of trees, or a pristine forest consumed by flames. The temptation to meddle is strong when we believe our intentions are pure. [City official Daniel] Burbage told a story about the Angel Oak. About 10 years ago, the park managers called him because of a large cavity on the side of the tree. They were worried that the limb below the cavity was falling. … The cavity looked bad; it made people think about rot and weakness. Burbage knew that everything was fine. But people don’t like to see such blemishes on symbolic old things, so Burbage put a screen over the cavity and covered it with putty and painted it to look like the tree’s bark. He never received another call about the falling limb. Like all of his interventions, the screen would have little impact on the centuries-long processes of growth and decay taking place slowly inside the tree.

(Photo of Angel Oak by Via Tsuji)