“If you love trees, don’t read The Overstory: it will break your heart. I kept having to put it down to read something else.”
Yes, I love trees, and, yes, it breaks my heart, whether or not they are sentient (or essential in the support of planetary life).
The wanton way we exploit and destroy trees, whether or not they are sentient, is of a piece with the wanton way we exploit and destroy animals (nonhuman and human) even though they are sentient.
We destroy art that way too (the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan) but there the only victims (if any) are the art’s creators and admirers, not the art.