Welcome to In Celebration of Trees!
Follow my Expedition Blog and you will be able to receive updates with photos and video clips of an amazing tree climbing expedition being led by David Milarch and Archangel Ancient Tree Archive from May 21-28, 2016. I will be their guest as they travel to California to collect and archive the genetics of some of the oldest, largest, and perhaps most important trees on earth – the coast redwoods and giant sequoias. This should be an exciting journey! I hope you can come along.
Also see below and check out my Sources of Inspiration pages to hear about people who have accomplished amazing things in planting trees to combat climate change.
Philip Stielstra, Seattle Tree Ambassador
Sources of Inspiration calls out some of my heroes that have done so much to reverse the trend of tree loss on this planet. You will find stories, photos, videos and links to many people, books and organizations that have accomplished amazing things. Here are a few of the sources of inspiration on my list:
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Jean Giono, French author of The Man Who Planted Trees, published in 1954, tells the fable of Elzeard Bouffier, who single-handedly planted hundreds of thousands of trees, a story told in an artfully-done 30 minute video on this site. |
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Wangari Maathai, Tree Mother of Africa and Nobel Peace Prize winner, founded the Green Belt Movement which planted 30 million trees in hopes of improving the chances for peace. |
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Felix Finkbeiner, who as nine-year-old boy in Germany in 2007 was given an assignment to prepare a report on the issue of climate change. He hatched the idea to plant one million trees in Germany, which eventually led him to launch a children’s initiative called Plant-for-the-Planet. |
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Plant-for-the-Planet, a children’s initiative that raises awareness among children and adults about the issues of climate change and global justice by planting trees. In 2011, it reached a goal of planting a million trees. It is now merged with the UN Billion Tree Campaign. |
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Billion Tree Campaign was launched worldwide by the United Nations, inspired by Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt Movement and the Plant-for-the-Planet initiative. To date it resulted in 14 billion trees planted. They have an ambitious goal of planting 1000 Billion trees by 2020. |
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Bhutan planted 108,000 trees to celebrate the birth on Feb. 20, 1916 of the royal baby. The country of Bhutan prizes environmental initiatives highly, enshrining conservation in a constitution that declares that 60 percent of the country must always be under forest cover. |
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Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, founded by David Milarch, has the mission of working with the oldest, largest, and most iconic ancient trees to archive their genetics and replant their clones to solve the worst environmental problems the world faces. An 11-min video, Moving the Giants, captures the essence of David Milarch’s message. |
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Eden Project is an educational charity in Cornwall, UK, inspired by the belief that they can work towards a better future. In March 2016 a forest of redwoods trees was planted at Eden with the help of Archangel to help preserve this giant species for future generations. |