I've asked this question to maybe 6 different cab drivers in mexico and gotten 6 different answers. Why are all the trees painted white at the bottom? The last cab driver told me it was so that the drivers could see them at night and didn't drive into any of them. "What about the ones on the beach?" I ask him. "Oh, I don't know about those ones."
Thats pretty funny. From what I've heard, it's to protect them from bugs. But what do I know....I'm not a cab driver.
I don't know much about this but I think that some places use a paint that is impregnated with an insecticide, and that keeps bugs from hurting the trees. I remember them doing this in the states. Here in Mexico I think it's just regular white paint, and I think it doesn't help the trees to resist bugs at all. In other words it might as well be to keep you from driving into them.
I've heard it's anti-insect/anti-ant stuff. We had white paint on trees in Canada, but it was for protection from bunnies and beavers (if I can remember that far back).
The white tree trunks remind me of when I was growing up in Ohio. Then, lime was used to keep pestilence away; at the time, Ohio was inundated with cicadas and some little gnatty thing I am too old to recall. I am sure it is the same here. Maybe calc instead of lime, or is it the same thing. ? Navigational aide for cabs has nothing to do with it! Well, on the other hand, it is a different country and indeed might!
I clearly have no clue why they do anything that they do in Mexico....and I've given up attempting to make sense out of most things that I see or hear about there. But, I was curious when I saw this post as to what answers I might find on the internet that haven't already been posted. The only additional "possible" reason that I was able to find was several places that painted the bottom of the trees white to designate the tree as government property and NOT private property. Apparently in some places, when people buy land, they are not advised of the laws with respect to the actual property that they purchased. Some think that if they buy a plot of land, they own all the land under the surface as well as all the airspace above the surface of the ground and all the surface of the plot they purchased. That isn't the case everywhere........especially communities that boarder water or have ALOT of forest/vegitation. They want to keep the community looking "natural" so they enact laws to prevent people from coming in with bulldozers and uprooting everything in sight....they also want to prevent people from building structures so high that you block your neighbors view of "whatever." They also pass laws to prevent folks from digging to depths that will effect the environment as well as their neighbors property. Oh....and I also found a survey posted where folks said that they actually voted to paint the bottom of the trees white for no reason other than they thought it looked good!!LOL! Dunno....maybe in Cancun they paint the bottom of the trees white to create more jobs for the unemployed?? Who knows?? Michelle
No one really knows because no one actually painted them there. Someone...no...someTHING else put them there. Instead of crop circles or great murals upon the land (eg. Nazca), aliens are marking area trees with white as a means of providing directions to their ships. They have been spotted not too long before, if you remember this video: [media=youtube]fiFeMcrExtw[/media]
