Tree Tenants and Property Development

Trees also have tenants, something property developers don’t highlight in their ads enticing us to buy condominiums off-plan (before they are built).

Their selling point is that we can use condos as homes or make money by renting them out. Condos come from different sources. Developers might buy old office buildings, libraries with no readers because they have gone online, old factories or repossessed houses.

They have money to hire armies of electricians, carpenters, roofers, landscape designers, electronic surveillance companies and other professionals necessary to transform old buildings into new money.  Plastic trees for the lobby are included in the budget.

Plain old land is the other source of condo development but it should be cleared for construction which means cutting trees, excavation of stubborn rocks or stabilizing swampy land. Birds and animals that used to live in trees run for their lives but trees themselves are uprooted, chopped off and catered away to some dump.

It can be argued that squirrels, birds and other animal life cannot be tenants because they never paid rent, like money to the landlord for his condo. But they did. Nature was the landlord. Nature is called underdevelopment because it doesn’t have a dollar or euro sign.

The tree provided a home, shade and playground for animals. They in turn, paid rent by giving it love, scratching it when it itches because believe it or not, that big old tree had branches but it couldn’t scratch itself. What’s the story with big things? Elephants also. There are birds that sit on elephants and give them a massage.

Some trees give tenants free food like nuts and berries. Human landlords don’t. They want their money. Trees also warned tenants about danger or the weather.

Tree tenants like tigers have the last laugh because after being evicted by condos, they move into human settlements, looking for what nature gave them for free.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.