EARTHWATCH : French Lesson : When it comes to replanting forests destroyed over time, we can learn by France’s example.

Turnabout is fair play, so I guess I had it coming. When out-of-state visitors come to Southern California, I like to point out that almost every single tree they see was planted by the hand of man. I enjoy seeing the reactions of amazement my revelation provokes in folks who thought this was a naturally tropical paradise.

Well, on a recent trip to France with my family, it was my turn to be amazed. We were driving out of Paris with our friend Adele Socier, who had visited us in Ventura and was taking us to her family’s country house. Only a few minutes out of town, we were in the forest of Fontainebleau, and the kids exclaimed with delight at how woodsy it was so soon out of Paris. I was about to explain to them that France, unlike Southern California, is naturally woodsy. But Adele stopped me cold with an all-too-familiar remark: “Every tree you see was planted by the hand of man.”

How could that be? France is not a desert. “No, mon ami,” said Adele, “but we almost turned into one.”

Here’s Adele’s story:

Way back, when Caesar and the first out-of-state settlers arrived, they had a country two-thirds covered in woods. The newcomers and the nature-worshipping Gauls at first didn’t do much damage with their bronze axes. But along about the first millennium, the French kings began to notice alarming changes in the scenery. These early NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yard, no-growth types) roped off Fontainebleau in France and Sherwood Forest in England about the same time.

France had its own woodcutters who ignored the zoning laws and hacked down half the forests of France. Louis XIV tried to stop this and even initiated a major replanting program.

But alas, we all know what happened apres Louis XIV. The “deluge” was a rain of hatchet blows, in this case.

By the time of the Revolutions, ours and theirs, they were down to a quarter of their original forests. And by the time Adele’s father was born in 1908, they had only one in 10 of their original trees. The Dust Bowl had arrived in France.

It seems they experienced then what we’re going through nowadays in California. A no-growth, managed growth, environmentalist awakening. They passed laws, hired forestry inspectors and, with a mass determination we can only admire, set about henceforth and forever more to plant three trees for every one cut down. In the country, in the cities, the back yard, along the roadside. Everywhere. They kept this up despite world wars, depressions, governments left and right.

The results, which Adele pointed out as we rode along, were wonderful. They’ve gotten back up to a third of their original forest cover. That’s 50,000 square miles. In California, that would be like foresting the Mojave or planting every third acre in the state with trees. It occurred to me, as I listened to Adele, that, while it took a millennium to cut down the forest, it could be grown back in a century. There’s hope.

Respectful of the awesome story we had just heard, I didn’t try to one-up Adele by talking about the work of the Tree People here in Southern California, so we bid her adieu at her destination.

But, for us hereabouts, there is the matter of the Tree People--a group that’s organized the planting of a million trees in California. Andy and Katie Lipkis in a few weeks will bring us their story in a book with a long and lucid title: “The Simple Act of Planting a Tree: Healing Your Neighborhood, Your City and Your World.”

Tree People now will send speakers to Ventura County who will explain how to get involved. Whatever your degree of interest in the environment, whether it be the rain forests, the redwoods or urban and suburban blight, consider that, whatever hurdles we think we’re facing here, there’s news abroad that it can be done.

* THE DETAILS: The Tree People Speaker’s Bureau: (818) 753-4600, Paulette Dolin. The Lipkis’ book, all royalties from which support the Tree People, can be ordered by calling (800) 325-5225 or can be purchased at the Ventura Bookstore--which also has Mary Davis’ book “Environmentalist’s Guide to France,” my source for corroborating the saga in this column.