Life in the Lowcountry requires a sense of everyday awe

Sally Krebs has a master's degree and doctorate on environmental matters, but she got her sense of awe about nature from her father.

He was a child of the Depression, unable to go beyond sixth grade. The first-generation American of Latvian descent was by day a motion machine in an automobile assembly plant. At home, he was a ravenous reader whose curiosity was fired by long walks through the woods near Elizabeth, N.J.

From his walks, he would bring exotic things to young Sally, whose real name is Salome.

Those lizards, birds and baby squirrels ended up having a big influence on the Lowcountry as Krebs has been natural resources administrator for the Town of Hilton Head Island for the past 23 years.

Krebs is known as "The Tree Lady" because she enforces the town's rigorous tree-protection ordinance.

Tree-protection is one of the first tasks the town tackled after incorporating in 1983. The goal is a diverse canopy of native trees that provide shade, hide development, gobble CO2, filter stormwater, nurture wildlife -- and enhance property values.

It isn't easy being "The Tree Lady." Who wants to be the voice for lowly vegetation when the suits come to town with big plans rolled up under their arms?

But Krebs said in a talk Wednesday night at First Presbyterian Church on Hilton Head that we're all in this thing together -- trees, wildlife and people.

Our tendency is to think: "We're here, and nature's over there," she said.

"It is important that we understand that our health as humans is directly related to the health of our environment," she said.

Our tendency is to chop and pave and haul in riprap and generally reorganize an intricate system that was quite well organized to begin with, thank you.

"The Tree Lady" is living proof that laws, ideals -- core community values -- aren't worth a whit unless they are enforced.

She is, in a way, the town crier. In the Lowcountry, nature is not "over there." It is, for many, why we are here.

We must not lose our connection with nature, she says -- whether it is by sitting in air-conditioned enclaves staring into computers, or by chopping down trees and underbrush and then pining for the long lost songbirds.

Krebs said that when she was a child, her mother didn't like her father to bring those wild things into her house. But as an adult, she warns that when we shut the door to the workings of nature, it is at our own peril.

"I think we lose that awe in everyday life," she said.