Some have been introduced at the federal level. To date, at least 15 states have enacted laws restricting foreign land ownership, including Florida, Virginia, Alabama and Montana about 20 other states have bills pending. In many states, restrictions also apply to those from Iran, Russia, North Korea and other countries of concern. Ron DeSantis boasted, “I banned China from buying land in the state of Florida.”įlorida is just one of several states that are passing laws prohibiting the sale of residential, business or agricultural property to Chinese nationals, Chinese-owned companies or the Chinese government near military facilities, airports and other critical infrastructure. presidential hopefuls made proposals ranging from building up America’s nuclear submarine force to forbidding Chinese nationals to buy land in the United States. Last month, during their third debate, G.O.P. Now new laws are targeting Chinese people from owning property again. The rationale for these restrictions was to prevent Asians, envisioned as an alien invasion, from taking over the United States. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Western states passed alien land laws, which prohibited Asian immigrants from buying or leasing agricultural property. It was a time when, throughout the United States, residential segregation was common, supported by mortgage lending practices and often written into real estate deeds with racial covenants that forbade the sale of a home to Black people, Jews and Asians. A real estate agent said it was because they were Chinese. And what’s more important is that while it’s living, it’s actually contributing to that ecosystem.In the late 1950s, my parents tried to buy land in northern New Jersey on which to build a home. “I encourage people to think of things through an ecological lens, where everything has a life cycle. “None of that is to say that a Christmas tree farm is a replacement for untouched nature,” Mizejewski said. They can be sunk into ponds for fish habitats or broken up to provide shelter for backyard critters. “Just like you eat broccoli, you kill the broccoli plant, right?” he said.Īfter Christmas, he said, many municipalities grind up Christmas trees for compost or use them as bulwarks against beach erosion. But that “urban environmentalist” attitude, he said, amounted to a simplified view of the complexity of life, and death, on the planet. “I grew up thinking the same, like, ‘Oh, no, killing the tree is bad,’” Mizejewski said. On the issue of whether it is advisable or ethical to chop down trees, David Mizejewski, a naturalist with the National Wildlife Federation, said Christmas trees should be viewed as an agricultural commodity. There are also organic growers who offer untreated trees. Norby also said that insecticide use was decreasing.īy the time trees reach consumers, experts agree, there is minimal residual pesticide left. He also said the increased use of ground cover, such as clover, lowered soil temperatures and drew in nitrogen, reducing the need for fertilizers.īetween 20, Christmas tree growers in North Carolina reported a 21% reduction in pesticide use. Pesticides are expensive, he said, and many growers live on-site and don’t want to be exposed. Yet Bert Cregg, a professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University, said that while pesticide use varied by species and region, Christmas tree growers generally want to minimize use of the chemicals. “In the interest of efficiency, sustainability takes a back seat.” “You’re really grasping at straws for species that find benefit,” Donley said. While food crops are generally sprayed more times a year, he said he was concerned that the longer growth cycle of Christmas trees could mean a heavier, cumulative load of pesticide, which could end up in nearby rivers or streams. Nathan Donley, the environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that a real tree was far preferable to a plastic one, and that Christmas tree farms were ecologically superior to golf courses or athletic fields.īut he said that the big tree farms, particularly those in the Pacific Northwest, were generally tightly packed, single-crop plantations.
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