An exercise in democracy has paid off in spades-and dirty fingernails-for sixth graders at Plymouth Meeting Friends School, a small Quaker school outside Philadelphia. As third graders, the students had written to the head of the school, Anne Javsicas, to protest a plan to make room for a proposed arts building by cutting down some trees. Now, just before their graduation from sixth grade, 145 of the school's students joined American Forests and retailer IKEA plant 10 historic trees there.

American Forests' VP for Global ReLeaf Karen Fedor was on hand to demonstrate proper planting techniques and oversee the planting of an American Forests' "Living Classroom," which includes trees grown from the seeds of historically significant trees.

After the shoveling was complete, the school had two each of the Walden Woods Red Maple; Betsy Ross Sycamore; Gilbert Stuart Flowering Dogwood; Pearl S. Buck Crabapple, and George Washington Tulip Poplars, complete with certificates of authenticity, lesson plans, a Living Classroom granite marker, and a video of the PBS documentary Silent Witnesses, about historically significant trees.

In applauding the effort, Javsicas praised the school's longtime emphasis on "stewardship and environmental responsibility in its curriculum." The school's curriculum will get a boost from the Living Classroom, which offers teachers lesson plans that integrate tree planting and environmental responsibility with history, environmental education, science, geography, mathematics and arts. American Forests' Geographic Information System (GIS)-based CITYgreen computer software is also included to provide an additional teaching tool for math, science and geography.

IKEA planted the Living Classroom as part of its stated effort to be a responsible community partner in places where new IKEA stores are built.

"IKEA believes it has a responsibility to help the environment and support our local communities across the U.S.," says John Zurcher, social and environmental affairs manager of IKEA U.S. Zurcher attended the school ceremony and helped with the planting, along with the retailer's Conshohocken store manager Doug Smith and community relations rep Kristen Naseel

The trees will provide benefits to more than just the school. An analysis of tree cover in the Philadelphia area by American Forests has found it needs at least 46 million trees to meet American Forests' recommended goal of an average 40 percent tree cover CHK for urban areas. For more on the Philadelphia study, visit American Forests' website at www.americanforests.org. AF

As the July 15 deadline loomed for nominations to American Forests' 2004 National Register of Big Trees, aficionados were mourning the recent loss of three notable champs while continuing to search for successors to a favorite-the Wye Oak-that fell in 2002.

The national co-champion American elm, a beautiful, classically shaped elm that graced a field in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, died after a two-year stuggle against Dutch elm disease. The champ, known as the Buckley Elm, was diagnosed in 2001 with the fungus that devastated cities in the mid-part of the last century and still wipes out thousands of elms each year. When last measured in 1997, the elm stood 112 feet high with a circumference of 23.5 feet and a crown spread of 115 feet for a total of 423 points. Its co-champ in Tennessee, for now the sole titleholder, stands 122 feet tall with a circumference of 23 feet and a crown spread of 84 feet for a total of 420 points.

In Illinois, meanwhile, the Witt family was celebrating Mother's Day when strong winds blowing across the state toppled their national champion hackberry. Before the massive tree broke in half and crashed to the ground, it stood 84 feet tall and nearly 21 feet around. The Witt's tree had reigned as top common hackberry since 1994. When it lost several large branches three years ago, owners John and Carol Witt followed the advice of experts and tree-lovers and had the remaining limbs cabled to try to save it.

"We heard a big groan and this big crack, and then boom! Down she came," Carol Witt said. "Not 15 minutes before that tree came down we were out under it. Poor old girl. She stood a lot of years."

A third tree, a massive longbeak eucalyptus in Pinal County, Arizona, died after vandals set fire to its trunk.

American Forests has kept the National Register of Big Trees since 1940-a listing of the largest-known trees of 826 native and naturalized species in the United States. California's General Sherman giant sequoia remains the nation's largest tree and the world's largest living thing. The impressive specimen is one of three trees that have been on the Register since it began in 1940. The other two are a Rocky Mountain juniper in Utah's Cache National Forest and a Western juniper in California's Stanislaus National Forest.

Ninety-nine species and six states-Delaware, Kansas, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wyoming-as well as the District of Columbia remain champ-less. For a list of the species without champs and the states in their growing range, visit www.american forests.org. You can also nominate potential champs online, read detailed instructions for measuring a potential big tree, and, in the online Register, view pictures of a number of the champs.

Creative urban forest design can cool urban heat islands, restore river ecosystems, and boost human capability and comfort. In San Antonio in September, a civil engineer, a biology professor, a social science researcher, and a community forestry coordinator will come together to explain just how this is done.

The session, Designing Green Infrastructure, is but one of more than 100 featured at American Forests' 2003 National Urban Forest Conference, "Engineering Green." The conference will be held Sept. 17-20 at the Adam's Mark Hotel on the city's downtown River Walk. (For more on the River Walk, see "A City Shaped by Its River, page 36.)

In addition to sessions and guest speakers, the conference will include a number of workshops and tours. In one, tour participants will travel to the capital of Austin to visit innovative stormwater runoff detention facilities and commercial and residential developments that minimize stormwater runoff and nonpoint source pollutants. They'll also visit the country's foremost center for wildflower research, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.

Interested in green building practices? Tour two of San Antonio's newest public facilities, the NW Vista Community College and the Northside Customer Service Center. Both were planned, designed, and built to be compatible with the surrounding environment and to protect the city's single water supply, the Edwards Aquifer.

In "Design and Build with Trees in Mind," you'll learn from those in the trenches and get an overview of techniques. "Handheld Technologies for Urban Forestry," teaches attendees how to use personal digital assistants to complete tree inventories, map GIS data in the field, and carry out tree planting and maintenance operations. A one-day hands-on computer training on American Forests' GIS software, CITYgreen, will be taught by the program's developer, Ken Gorton.

For program and registration details, visit www.americanforests.org. Early registration rates end July 31.

Over the past few months, Congress has again engaged in the debate over wildfire threats on our federal forests and the need to protect communities and forest ecosystems from destructive wildfires. The debate has been framed by President Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative" (HFI) and complicated by participants' need to consider a variety of proposals for new legislative authorities and administrative rule changes, as well as annual funding. American Forests and our community-based forestry partners have attempted to maintain an active presence in this debate, but it hasn't been easy.

As I mentioned in the Spring issue (Washington, Outlook, p. 21), the FY 2003 Omnibus Appropriations bill passed by Congress in February included a rider authorizing expanded use of stewardship contracting authorities for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Those authorities, a key component of the President's HFI, would allow multi-year contracts and the exchange of goods, such as small-diameter timber, for land services under the same contract. American Forests and a number of its partners urged the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to convene a meeting of diverse interest groups and individuals experienced in stewardship-contracting projects before developing guidelines for new expanded authorities.

The goal of the meeting, which the Secretaries held in April through the Pinchot Institute for Conservation with assistance from American Forests, was to build trust and share knowledge gained through and from 84 existing pilot projects. The report from this "National Outreach Forum" captured many perspectives on stewardship contracting and offered suggestions on implementing the new authorities. The agencies' proposed interim guidelines are being released as we go to press, and we plan to comment on them by the July 28 deadline.

In the last issue, I also mentioned several administrative rule changes proposed by the Administration. These changes would make it easier for the Forest Service to implement certain types of projects, such as hazardous fuels reduction and small timber sales, by requiring less environmental analysis and limiting administrative appeals. American Forests supports some of these concepts, but we're concerned about the increased discretion alloted to agency officials and the limited guidance given for increased collaboration with local stakeholders and for multiparty monitoring, an effort to ensure learning. Several of these proposed rule changes have recently become final, and they can have important effects on how the Forest Service will actually implement projects. We see increased collaboration and multiparty monitoring as mechanisms to participate with the Forest Service and track how it's using that discretion.

The most significant debate in Congress of late has been over legislative proposals. The House quickly passed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act (H.R. 1904) in May, with little opportunity for debate. Introduced by Reps. Scott McInnis (R-CO) and Greg Walden (R-OR), the bill gained some bipartisan support but was strongly opposed by western Democratic leaders. Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Peter DeFazio (D-OR) offered an alternative bill, the Federal Lands Hazardous Fuels Reduction Ac" (HR 1621) that was defeated.

The Senate began action on H.R. 1904 with a recent hearing in the Agriculture Committee. It's unclear how the Committee will proceed with developing a bill, but Sen. Michael Crapo (R-ID), who chaired the hearing, suggested it wants to move the legislation quickly. In the meantime, two Democrat-sponsored bills have been introduced as alternatives. Sens. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Tom Daschle (D-ND) have introduced the Collaborative Forest Health Act (S.1314) and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced S.1352 to expedite hazardous fuels reduction projects on national forests.

American Forests based its comments on HR 1904 largely on a framework for addressing hazardous fuels reduction that we prepared this spring with our community-based forestry partners (see www.americanforests.org/resources). We focused on those sections dealing with collaboration and monitoring for hazardous fuels reduction. As it stands, the bill says simply that these activities should be done in a manner consistent with the comprehensive strategy's 10-year implementation plan developed by the Western Governors Association (see editorial, p. 5).

We suggested additional language to help clarify the intent of collaboration and emphasize the importance of inclusiveness at the local level. We also suggested the bill include a call for multiparty monitoring to help build trust and ensure learning among the diverse parties interested in these projects. We sought to avoid language that would mandate how the agencies would carry out the collaboration and monitoring but tried to provide sufficient guidance to strengthen these key provisions and encourage consistency.

We also urged Congress to identify funding sources for these activities, which have often gone unfinished from a lack of funding, and to include regional training teams of agency contracting officers, local contractors, and community representatives with experience in collaboration and multiparty monitoring.

These provisions would help with the significant challenges of building capacity both within the agencies and the local communities while implementing needed hazardous fuels-reduction projects.-Gerry Gray

During the first of what New York City hopes to make an annual Green Day celebration, City Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe joined American Forests' Karen Fedor and friends at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx at a educational nature celebration.

"We appreciate American Forests' support of New York's urban forestation projects," Benepe said as he helped kids shovel dirt over a crabapple tree. "As they grow, these trees will serve as true living memorials to the heroes of the September 11 tragedies."

American Forests is planting nearly 2800 memorial trees throughout New York state through its partnership with retailer Eddie Bauer. Similar plantings are taking place near the sites where planes crashed into the Pentagon near Washington and the Pennsylvania countryside.