Dastardly tree attackers

What kind of person attacks trees?  Trees can't get away, so as a target they don't offer much sport.  And even very large trees are easy enough for a puny human to destroy using our tools, fire, saws, axes (TPP can't bring himself to watch Ax men on TV.), even if tree took decades or centuries to grow.  More likely certain trees represent something that certain people don't like.  Still what nasty, small, cowardly people these are, totally thoughtless, totally without regard for nature.  Sort of like people who throw bottles or stones through windows.  Or the kind of people who run over turtles with their cars.  Can you believe it? 

Real ginkgo forests

Ginkgoes and ginkgophytes (ginkgo like plants) have been around for a long time, 275 million years or so dating back to the Permian.  Presently a single species, Ginkgo biloba, is all that is left, but far from nearing extinction, its ornamental value has redistributed this species around the world.  All of these ginkgo trees are descendants of offspring from some sacred groves of trees protected by monastaries in China, and botanists have speculated for some time about whether ginkgo actually still exists in the wild or whether it persists just as a cultivated plant.  A report in the most recent issue of the American Journal of Botany (August, 2012, v. 99(8): 1408–1414.) has determined that a glacial refugium in the Dalou Mountains harbors natural fragments of ginkgo forest.  The composition of these forests finds that the same plants are still growing with ginkgo as found in the fossil record.  The image is of an 878 year old tree bearing some red feng shui flags for good fortune.  The oldest ginkgo in North America is in Bartram's Garden.  How cool is that?  Maybe next they'll find Glossopteris alive.