ForestBytes --- September 2002 Volume III, Issue 29 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ http://www.americanforests.org AMERICAN FORESTS People Caring for Trees and Forests Since 1875 To subscribe to ForestBytes: Visit http://www.americanforests.org/ If you find this information valuable, please pass it on to friends and colleagues. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Announcements ¤ Play Ball! Yankees Kick Off Memorial Tree Groves. ¤ Bush's Healthy Forest/Wildfire Initiative ¤ Announcing the 2003 National Urban Forest Conference II. What's Happening ¤ Liberty Trees Presented to More States ¤ Baltimore Makes the Most of Wasted Wood ¤ Drumming Up Donations for Trees ¤ An Environment Law Renewed III. Environmental News from ENN.com ¤ "In Puerto Rico, concrete jungle stifles singing frogs" ¤ "Goodall urges loggers to save African forests" ¤ "Vines spread, choke trees in deepest Amazon jungle" == ANNOUNCEMENTS ================================================ ---------------------------------------------------------------- Play Ball! Yankees Kick Off Memorial Tree Groves ---------------------------------------------------------------- During a pre-game ceremony on Sunday, September 8, at Yankee Stadium, AMERICAN FORESTS and Eddie Bauer will present the first Memorial Tree planted in New York for 9-11. The tree, a coral burst crabapple will be planted in the stadium’s Monument Park behind Center Field, and will be accompanied by a special memorial plaque. The tree in Monument Park marks the beginning of plantings to remember each life lost in New York; Virginia/Washington, DC; and Pennsylvania. "Throughout history, trees have been planted to recognize acts of heroism," executive director Deborah Gangloff says. "As our nation continues to rebuild communities affected by September 11, we believe that planting trees is a fitting tribute to the strength and perseverance of America. Trees are not only a unique memorial, they are a significant contribution to the environment." AMERICAN FORESTS’ Memorial Tree Groves campaign was created as a living tribute to the firefighters, policemen, and other victims and heroes who lost their lives at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In January, retailer Eddie Bauer pledged $500,000 to AMERICAN FORESTS to support the Memorial Tree Groves campaign. Through January 2003, the retailer is asking customers to add a dollar to their total to help plant Memorial Trees. Donations can be made at any Eddie Bauer retail store, through the Eddie Bauer catalog service (800/426-8020) or online at www.eddiebauer.com. AMERICAN FORESTS will plant more than 2,800 trees in New York; 40 at a fire fighting training facility in Somerset, Pennsylvania; and 184 near the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. In addition, AMERICAN FORESTS will plant at least 184 trees on Washington, DC’s Kingman Island, in recognition of the national scope of the tragedy. AMERICAN FORESTS is working with local groups and agencies such as New York City’s Parks and Recreation Department; Hudson River Park Trust; Lower Hudson River RC&D; SUNY at Stony Brook; Washington, DC’s Mayor Williams' Office; and Arlington County, Virginia officials. Beginning this fall, these 6- to 10- foot-tall trees, will be planted at the designated sites. For more information about Memorial Tree Groves, visit us online at http://www.americanforests.org/campaigns/memorial_trees/groves/ Or, you can tell a friend about it by sending a postcard at http://www.americanforests.org/postcards/createcard.php?postcard_id=16 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Bush's Healthy Forests Initiative to Prevent Catastrophic Wildfire and Reduce Obstacles for On-the-Ground Work ---------------------------------------------------------------- Responding to the rash of devastating wildfires that have swept the West this summer, President Bush is planning to create a healthy forests initiative to prevent catastrophic wildfire and reduce obstacles for on-the-ground work. Bush, who made a visit to a fire site in Oregon last month, is expected to propose changes to environmental laws to make it easier to get approval to thin out federal forests and remove fire-prone dead trees and undergrowth. But environmentalists said the administration was gutting safeguards that have protected the national forests for decades. According to an article on enn.com, administration officials said forest management changes are needed to reduce the fire risks. According to information released by the US Forest Service, this summer, wildfires have burned more than 6 million acres from Alaska to New Mexico, or twice as much as in an average summer. Federal spending to combat wildfires could reach $1.5 billion this year. Interior Secretary Gale Norton, characterizing Western forests as "a tinder box waiting for a spark," said much of the blame can be traced to "nearly a century of well-intentioned but misguided management" of federal forests, including the policies of putting out fires as soon as they start and restricting removal of underbrush, fallen logs and dead timbers. This has left forests "crowded ... with thick undergrowth (that) makes forests susceptible to disease, drought, and severe wildfires," she wrote in an op-ed article published last month in USA Today. Environmentalists acknowledged that decades of quickly extinguishing fires contributed to the fire problem. But they insisted that actions by environmentalists to protect forests played no part in the fire hazard. What do you think? What should President Bush do to reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfires in our communities? Email us with your opinion at info@amfor.org For further fire updates, information, and ways you can help restore wildfire-damaged forests, visit www.wildfirereleaf.org. Tell a friend! Send them a Wildfire ReLeaf postcard at http://www.americanforests.org/postcards/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Announcing the 2003 National Urban Forest Conference ----------------------------------------------------------------- AMERICAN FORESTS is pleased to announce the 2003 National Urban Forest Conference in San Antonio, Texas on September 17-20, 2003. Engineering Green into metropolitan America is not only the recipe for a healthy city, but the theme of the 2003 National Urban Forest Conference. Metropolitan areas are growing at an alarming rate, and the cost of building and maintaining air quality, water and energy needs for residents has created a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Can we change this direction? Cities need to incorporate ecological principals into better urban planning and development. Trees are the lungs, water filters, and air conditioners of our cities. Engineering Green will showcase ways that cities can build according to nature’s laws and rise above the financial, ecological and social tides of urban growth. AMERICAN FORESTS seeks proposals for concurrent sessions and workshops by October 15, 2002. Visit our website www.americanforests.org and click on 2003 National Urban Forest Conference for more information and to respond to our Call For Papers by October 15, 2002. == WHAT'S HAPPENING =================================================== * Liberty Trees Presented to More States Beginning with an August 14 celebration in Boston, AMERICAN FORESTS presented three Liberty Tree seedlings to the state Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. AMERICAN FORESTS celebrated Liberty Tree day with Bostonians and tourists alike by toasting the "Liberty Tree" (a large elm not far from the location of Boston's original Liberty Tree) with mugs of cider, as was the tradition during Colonial times, and celebrate the spirit of America with music and historical reenactments. This year’s celebration included musician Livingston Taylor, who played the Taylor Guitars' Liberty Tree guitar, made from the wood of the last standing Liberty Tree. "You’ll hear the sounds of liberty on the Liberty Tree guitar," Deborah Gangloff, executive director of AMERICAN FORESTS, said as she introduced the musician during the event. The second and third trees were presented in Hartford, Connecticut, and Newport, Rhode Island, in ceremonies during the following two days. Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed said, "I thank AMERICAN FORESTS for presenting this offspring of the last Liberty Tree to the people of Rhode Island. It will serve as a powerful symbol of those ideals, liberty, independence and democracy, for which our nation’s first citizens fought so many years ago." The presentation of a Liberty Tree seedling to the three states by AMERICAN FORESTS and Taylor Guitars is part of a program by which the two organizations will offer one of 14 seedlings AMERICAN FORESTS grew from the last Liberty Tree to each of the thirteen original Colonies. Presentations will continue through out the year, while a 14th seedling will be presented to the White House in 2003. * Baltimore Makes the Most of Wasted Wood AMERICAN FORESTS will help Baltimore develop a plan to reuse inner city wood waste while creating new jobs and reforesting the urban landscape, thanks to a grant from the U.S. Forest Service’s Northeast Area. The Inner City Project grant awarded to AMERICAN FORESTS for its Urban/Rural Initiative is designed to explore ways residents can use otherwise wasted wood to turn a profit. "The program is a really new and different way to use trees that would have gone to waste," says Bryant Smith, executive director of the Urban Arts Institute in Baltimore. "It’s a great way to get the community involved in their neighborhoods while cleaning up the environment." As with any city, Baltimore’s urban environment is tough place for trees to grow. Many die of old age, are plagued by disease, damaged beyond repair by storms, and removed for development. Each season, thousands of these trees are dumped in a city wood landfill called Camp Small. Creating room for the landfill and the trucks that bring in the logs has degraded some of the forestland, wetlands, and streams at Cylburn Arboretum, where Camp Small is located. Project partners are exploring ways to help residents make a profit from the wood by turning it into furniture, landscaping materials, timber exports, or clean-burning charcoal via innovative technologies, to name a few. Project partners include Revitalizing Baltimore, the Urban Arts Institute, and the Woodberry neighborhood’s Urban Forest Initiative. "We’re really lucky to have so many groups interested in the program," Smith says. "Baltimore has been plagued by these stockpiles of wood, good wood that shouldn’t go to waste. I think people are beginning to understand and take the initiative to do something about it now." The Urban/Rural Initiative’s plan is a critical step toward helping communities and policymakers create an economy that will restore and maintain their urban forest as one would sustainably manage a rural forest. Ideally trees that were no longer viable would be removed, a government entity would contract with a business such as this to re-use the trees by manufacturing and selling value-added products, and government profits would be reinvested in restoring functioning urban ecosystems. As a result, Baltimore would realize the reforestation of degraded land, existing forests would be given a market value to be protected, wood-waste would be recycled, and jobs would be created. AMERICAN FORESTS is creating two pilot projects to test and replicate community-based forestry principles that link urban and rural communities. The second project is in Seattle. For more information on the program, contact Ian Leahy at 202/955-4500 x236 or e-mail ileahy@amfor.org. To learn more about AMERICAN FORESTS, visit us on the web at www.americanforests.org * Drumming Up Donations for Trees A California company is drumming up support for the environment, one dollar at a time. Drum Workshop, which produces drums and drum accessories at its Oxnard headquarters outside Los Angeles, will donate $1 to AMERICAN FORESTS for each drum it sells. The company, which sells an average of 5,000- 6,000 drumsets, and up to 7,500 individual snare drums annually, thought donating to AMERICAN FORESTS was a good way to give back. Carrie Lombardi, Drum Workshop’s Director of Purchasing says, "When we were looking at different options, we liked AMERICAN FORESTS’ philosophy. Donating to plant trees is a great way to give back to the environment." Want to read more about this story and other news from the world of forests? Join AMERICAN FORESTS, and read all about it in AMERICAN FORESTS magazine. AMERICAN FORESTS members automatically receive the quarterly full-color AMERICAN FORESTS magazine. An AMERICAN FORESTS' membership is only $25, which will be used to plant trees in a forest restoration project. * Reviewing a New Environment Law The Bush administration is reviewing a landmark environmental law both reviled and praised because it requires lengthy studies before foresters cut a tree or developers start to dig. According to a report on enn.com, White House officials say they want to modernize the 32-year-old law they blame for bureaucratic gridlock. At issue is the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Signed by President Nixon in 1970, the law requires developers, loggers, and others to describe in detail the impact a proposed project will have on the environment and come up with measures to minimize them. A typical environmental impact statement includes detailed analysis by several federal agencies and extensive public comment. Environmentalists consider it a fundamental law and rely on it to limit development on public land and block projects that threaten endangered species, including the spotted owl and steelhead trout. Critics say the law has burgeoned into a swamp of regulations and logistical hoops that stall federal action for years at a time. The review was launched last month by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which says the law needs to be updated after three decades of being essentially unchanged. A nine-member task force is accepting public comment through Sept. 23 and expects to issue a report by early next year. While the forest plan has attracted more media attention, the NEPA review is potentially even farther reaching, environmentalists say. To find out more information about NEPA, visit the US Department of Energy's website at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/nepa/. ********************* ARE YOU A MEMBER??************************ You can do your part to help the environment today by joining AMERICAN FORESTS. Not only are 25 trees planted for you in a damaged ecosystem or forest restoration project, but you will also receive: - A free subscription to our quarterly magazine - A free Big Trees calendar - A window decal Join Today! Visit http://www.americanforests.org/ ***************************************************************** == ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS AND FEATURES FROM ENN.COM ================= * "In Puerto Rico, concrete jungle stifles singing frogs" http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/09/09022002/ap_48308.asp * "Goodall urges loggers to save African forests" http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08282002/reu_48275.asp * "Vines spread, choke trees in deepest Amazon jungle" http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/08/08152002/reu_48139.asp ______________________________________ ForestBytes ______________ Don't forget to forward this information to friends or colleagues. 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