OUT ON A LIMB

Steve Picou's formative religious experience took place in the arms of an oak tree.

"I'm don't know if you have ever sat in a big, old, live oak before," Picou said one recent afternoon while driving through City Park.

"I was raised a Catholic. I'm a wayward Catholic. But I never felt closer to God than when I was sitting in the branches of an ancient live oak," said Picou, who, like the oak, was raised in St. Landry Parish.

He declared his interest in nature while an eighth-grader at St. Edmund Catholic School.

"Sister Margaret Mary, in her distinctive, thick Irish brogue, asked us if we had discovered anything interesting lately," Picou recalled. "I rather excitedly raised my hand and shouted out, 'Ecology, Sister. Ecology,' for which I was picked on for the next four years by my classmate, Keith Fontenot."

These days Picou, 53, works as a housing agent at the LSU AgCenter, where he promotes wind code compliance, energy efficiency and sustainable building practices. But he spends much of his time, off and on the clock, advocating on behalf of majestic old trees.

His efforts often focus on trees you'd think were the most protected -- those in parks and in other public spaces.

His is a quixotic, free-lance mission. Even without formal backing from any group, he has become a de facto enforcer of tree ordinances, contacting journalists and buzzing the ears of the keepers of trees.

Much of what he has to say can be found on his blog, http://dyingoaks.posterous.com/, which he calls "A Chronicle of Tree Abuse in the New Orleans Area and Louisiana."

Picou brings to mind the Dr. Seuss character who "way back in the days when the grass was still green and the pond was still wet and the clouds were still clean" declared, "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees."...