Trees and beavers. They kind of go together like Ripken and the "O's". Trees and beavers are ecologically linked. The beavers gnaw down trees and build dams. And beaver dams flood the floodplain causing many of the other trees to die and disappear. When the beavers leave and their pond is drained, a nice meadow appears until the trees and then the beavers return. A cycle of life: nature's way.

But in the highly reductionist environmental policies of today, beavers are bad news; trees are good news. Beavers are the second most overpopulated wildlife species in Maryland. The first is deer. Both love to nibble on young trees. Without the company of natural predators, the beaver and deer populations have skyrocketed. And this overpopulation is particularly stressful news for trees, particularly trees that grow along streams in what are called riparian buffers. A riparian buffer is a string of trees and other vegetation (but primarily trees) that stabilize stream banks, slow down and trap sediment and other runoff from the land thereby protecting water quality.

We have been told trees, growing in riparian buffers, will save our water quality. "By protecting the lands adjacent to the tributaries of the Bay," said Vice President Al Gore on October 20, 1997 while standing on a farm near Centreville. "We can significantly reduce the amount of nutrients, sediment and pesticides that reach the waters of the Bay."

What the Vice-President said that Fall day in Maryland has been repeated up and down the Chesapeake watershed for years by politicians of both parties. Indeed, the governors of Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland have announced a goal of 2000+ miles of new riparian buffers along Chesapeake watershed streams and rivers by a date early in the next century. The US Department of Agriculture has a goal of 2 million miles of new riparian buffers. These numbers are impressive. They are also something of a sad joke.

"I estimate that there are about 100 miles of restored riparian buffers that have been successfully planted in the US," said Dr. David Correll, scientist at the Smithsonian's Environmental Research Lab in Edgewater. "And most of those are in Iowa."

The ambitious programs to plant or replant trees in riparian buffer zones aren't working. Why? Well, beavers and deer form one part of the answer. The overpopulation of these two species dooms many tree replantings. When the trees are young, hungry deer can strip them of their foilage while beavers harvest what remains for their dams. To survive, replanted trees have to be a decade old in order to get their crowns out of reach of the omnipresent deer.

And if the deer and the beavers don't get the newly planted trees, exotic non-native plant species will. Kudzu, Japanese honeysuckle and other non-native plants successfully out compete the young trees. "Riparian zones are a favorite habitat for exotics," said Dr. Correll. "They simply can come in and take over."

Finally, there is the most dangerous species of all, humankind. Developers and other builders routinely are allowed, in many places in Maryland, to cut down riparian buffer trees in exchange for a promise to plant new trees someplace else. Most of these mitigation efforts simply don't work. In effect, we often cut down strong, established tree buffers and attempt to replace them with weak and vulnerable new plantings. That this policy is not successful should surprise no one.

In some places in Maryland, the buffers protected by the Conservation Reserve Programs, the conservation easements negotiated by groups like the Worcester Land Trust are simply ignored by developers. New mini-rural estate home owners expect water views from their sprawl mansions. And they get them, often regardless of legal agreements to the contrary. After all, who is enforcing these agreements?

One measure of the political hype around riparian buffers can be seen in the shortage of native hardwood plant stock for these new buffers. Without enough mature trees to plant, riparian buffer programs are doomed to fail from the get go. "The lead time for these hardwoods is generally about ten years," said Correll. " A ten year old tree is large enough to survive the deer and deter the beavers."

Ten years before we even have enough mature trees to plant, lack of enforcement of existing buffer protections, rapidly spreading non-native species, large populations of beavers and deer...individually, each of these problems represent a serious challenge to riparian restoration programs. Collectively, they mean the much touted water cleanup programs based on riparian buffers, at best, are not going to have any measurable impact for decades.

Tree plantings are good TV news visuals. They show politicians actually doing something (with a shovel) to protect our water and our environment. But standing in the audience are politically connected folks who will cut down those trees for a better water view. And beyond the humans crowded around the cameras are another audience of beavers and deer who are thinking "lunch".

We need the water cleansing provided by wooded riparian zones. But we must stop pretending that we are succeeding in this goal. We need to take a hard look at the reality, increase money for riparian research, reduce the population of beaver and deer, protect existing buffers from developers and mitigation scams, and empower ordinary citizens with standing to enforce the laws that government is either unwilling or unable to enforce.