Connor, who will be a 7th grader this fall, studied deforestation and worried about its effects on wildlife. He began selling pins made out of puzzle pieces painted with colorful likenesses of animals for $1 each. The effort snowballed, with friends pitching in to help and neighbors requesting pins. He presented a check for $3,700 to American Forests executive director Deborah Gangloff this week. Connor asked that his donation plant trees for Siberian tigers in Russia, Monarch butterflies in Mexico, and help offset the effects of wildfire across the U.S. All are projects planted by American Forests’ Global ReLeaf campaign. Read more about his efforts in the Autumn issue of American Forests magazine. As part of a project for her 8th grade science class, Alyssa studied paper and plastic bags to see which was less harmful to the environment. She ended up purchasing, painting, and selling canvas bags as a durable, reusable solution. Inside each one she tucked a flyer explaining the importance of reusing, reducing and recycling. "I want people to see that each of our small decisions add up and can affect the world in either a negative or (hopefully) positive way," Alyssia says. "I also decided to donate the profit ($100) to your organization because I know that the money can be used to benefit this problem. " [Back to Top]Trash Junk Mail Brothers Sander DeVries, Tim Pfannes, and Shane Pfannes started 41pounds in Michigan as a community service project in addition to their regular jobs. "We were continually annoyed by all the useless junk mail we were getting, and we found out how much damage was being done to the planet," DeVries says. "We love raising money for American Forests because they are working every day to protect and restore healthy forests." When you subscribe 41pounds will contact dozens of direct mail companies to remove your name from their marketing lists. This includes almost all credit card applications, coupon mailers, sweepstakes entries, magazine offers and insurance promotions, plus any catalogs you specify. www.41pounds.org [Back to Top]Sherry Stern got the idea for the new website after learning of the popularity of birdwatching while attending a wildlife film festival. “Birding is acoustic,” she says, “you often hear a bird before you see it.” I thought that bird ringtones would be a fun way to learn bird calls.” Her original idea expanded, and the website now includes ringtones from domestic animals as well as those that live in the forest, jungle, and underwater. Conservation Calling contributes 10 percent of its net revenue to American Forests’ Global ReLeaf program to support the restoration of wildlife habitat and urban canopy. The website features mobile games and cell phone wallpaper, as well, sales of which also support American Forests’ tree-planting efforts. www.conservationcalling.com [Back to Top]Steves donated $80,000 to American Forests to plant 80,000 trees in ecosystem restoration projects. “In its lifetime, each tree, on average will absorb 1/6 of the CO2 generated by one person flying round-trip from the USA to Europe,” Steves says. “Six trees multiplied by about 13,000 tour members in a year requires 80,000 new trees.” www.ricksteves.com [Back to Top]ConocoPhillips Settlement Brings California 2.8 Million Trees The oil giant also will donate $7 million to support offset projects in the Bay Area and $200,000 to restore the San Pablo wetlands. Brown called the agreement a “groundbreaking step in California’s battle to combat global warming. . .” “We are delighted to be chosen as the tree-planting partner for this historic agreement,” American Forests Executive Director Deborah Gangloff said. “While fire is a natural cycle for many ecosystems, many states—including California—have suffered from out-of-control fires as a result of years of having those natural processes inhibited.” Since 2000, American Forests has planted approximately 450,000 trees in California as part of its Wildfire ReLeaf program. Wildfire ReLeaf is part of American Forests’ Global ReLeaf program, which plants native species in damaged ecosystems for $1 a tree. Conoco’s donation will result in the planting of 2.8 million trees, and the sequestering of a million tons of CO2. Many American corporations are putting resources behind tree planting for the multiple benefits it provides. Rebuilding damaged ecosystems pays off in cleaner air and water, improved wildlife habitat, and sequestered greenhouse gas emissions. “We look forward to working with our California partners to determine the best locations to plant these trees,” Gangloff added. “By preventing erosion, restoring wildlife habitat and offering places for recreation, these trees will provide a significant boost to attempts to restore ecosystems damaged by out-of-control wildfires.” If you or anyone you know would like to help place PSAs in local newspapers, magazines, and publications please visit our PSA page online. Thanks again for your ongoing support. The beetle made its first appearance in Pennsylvania, turning up in Cranberry. Emerald ash borer, which has killed more than 25 million trees in five states over five years, first appeared in Michigan in 2002. Officials believe it gained entry to the U.S. on cargo ships, then hitched a ride on firewood and nursery stock, spreading to Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland and now Pennsylvania, according to Melissa Brewer, of the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s emerald ash borer program. The long-term ramifications of the beetle’s presence in Pennsylvania are grave. Ash is a popular species in Pennsylvania, and the native white ash is common to state forests. Compounding the problem, these trees supply the wood of choice for Louisville Slugger, the official bat supplier of Major League Baseball, which uses it to make 80 percent of the 1.6 million bats it has produced annually. This wood comes from forests along the Pennsylvania-New York border. According to the New York Times, one baseball bat factory has drawn up a three- to five-year emergency plan; in Michigan authorities have begun to collect and store seeds in case the species goes extinct. And federal officials are looking to unleash Asian wasps to attack the beetle. In August, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told officials in his state that the federal government will offer low-cost loans to municipalities, forest preserve districts and other agencies. The Chicago Tribute cited $7.6 in federal money Durbin helped get to slow infestations of the beetle and said he had pledged to try to get another $30 million this year.http://www.emeraldashborer.info/
Cornell Links Pollution, Deaths Pimentel, professor of ecology and agricultural sciences, and a group of grad students reviewed data from more than 120 published papers for a report for the journal Human Ecology. “We have serious environmental resource problems of water, land, and energy, and these are now coming to bear on food production, malnutrition, and the incidence of diseases,” Pimentel says. The Cornell study found 1.2 billion people lacking clean water which in turn leads to waterborne infections that account for 80 percent of infectious diseases. Air pollution from smoke and chemicals kills 3 million people yearly. About 3 million tons of toxic chemicals are released into the environment in the U.S. alone, and these contribute to problems of cancer, birth defects, immune system defects and other serious health problems, the study found. Pimentel and his co-authors are calling for increased conservation of environmental resources that support human life as well as comprehensive population policies. American Forests, the nation’s oldest conservation group, launched its Global ReLeaf program in 1988 as an effort to improve the environment through tree planting. It redoubled its efforts this year with the launch of Global ReLeaf2, which seeks to plant 100 million more trees by the year 2020. Global ReLeaf (www.americanforests.org/planttrees) plants trees for $1/each in ecosystem restoration programs around the U.S. and worldwide. [Back to Top] Will Olympics Harm Environment Construction worries aren't limited to hotels and visitor centers, though; the bobsled track is planned for a buffer zone that protects the mountains, forests, and rivers. According to an article in ENN, environmentalists from the region are both proud to host the games within their country and concerned about the possible ecological consequences. Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund plan to lobby for changes in the area's construction plans. No word on environmentalist reaction to China's announcement in late July that it would build 33 windmills to supply energy to the 2008 Games. Reuters said the windmills, just outside Beijing, would produce about 100 million kwh of electricity. It quoted from a report in China Daily that said the Chinese Olympic Committee wanted 20 percent of the games' venues to be powered by wind-generated electricity. [Back to Top]Interviewed on American Express’s website, Ms. Walker said she was inspired to propose the million trees project by two events occurring in her life at the time. First, her home state of Georgia was losing trees in fires sparked by drought. Second, her mother had been diagnosed with cancer and Ms. Walker’s family had sent her trees—“I wanted to give her something for Mother’s Day that was long-lasting, that would withstand the test of time.” Trees are a vital resource for the earth, she said, and that’s something she wants her three young daughters to recognize. “I want them to respect trees and understand their beauty and their purpose and their importance,” she said. “Trees affect every one of us that lives on this earth. They provide shelter, they provide beauty, they provide oxygen,” Walker said. “We are removing trees from our environment. And as long as they’re disappearing by whatever means, natural disaster or human hands, it’s our responsibility to the earth to replace them. The winning proposal in American Express’s Members Project was a plan to provide safe drinking water for children, a project that will be carried out by UNICEF. The other finalists in American Express’s Members Project were proposals to fund public school teachers’ classroom requests via a website, restore U.S. national parks, and use wind and solar energy to power small generators for individual homes. [Back to Top]The aptly named Sawfish operates by remote control, cutting up to 10 trees an hour. Although this is slightly slower than conventional harvesting techniques, every dead tree harvested underwater means one less live tree that needs to be cut down on land. So far Triton has harvested its underwater timber from two reservoirs in British Columbia, Ootsa Lake and Lois Lake, with the wood used primarily for Canadian green-building projects. But plans to expand the Sawfish's production means wood products will be available to the public through Triton's website within a year, the company says.. [Back to Top]Three hundred students at the June planting ceremony also received an Eleanor Roosevelt White Ash seed kit from American Forests. Earlier in the year Clinton’s office, Re-Tree WNY, and the University of Buffalo began planting 120 historic trees donated by American Forests for Buffalo schools. American Forests worked with International Paper/XpedX and Davey Tree to secure funding for the trees. The trees are descendents of ones connected with 10 American presidents ranging from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to Teddy Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Forty thousand trees will be planted in southwestern Wisconsin in a project that is converting highly erodible farmland into high-density hardwood forest. In Illinois, 60,000 trees will be planted at The Nature Conservancy’s Emiquon Preserve. For sheer biological diversity and cultural importance, Emiquon’s pre-European-settlement landscape of backwater lakes, wetlands, and forests was virtually unmatched in the Midwest. The Ceres Trust board said in a release that it was pleased to both contribute to the restoration of Midwest hardwood forests and work to mitigate the effects of global warming. American Forests’ Global ReLeaf program restores damaged ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad. Since 1988 it has planted 25 million trees in all 50 states and 27 countries. [Back to Top]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:
Join Today! Visit http://www.americanforests.org/ Forest Bytes Don't forget to forward this information to friends or colleagues. |
