Bad news and the environment seem to be intimate bedfellows these days. Eco news is filled with stories of environmental waste and habitat destruction caused by companies like Unilever and Exxon Mobile. With all this negativity it’s easy to forget about organizations fighting for a cleaner planet. These “little guys” do not garner as much press as the wrong doers, but surely their accomplishments warrant more praise. So with a determined nod and forceful kick in the direction of progress here’s a look at two non-profits trying to replant our forests.

Trees for the Future, established in 1988 by international volunteers Dave and Grace Deppner, has managed to replant 50 million trees worldwide in 20 years. In terms of global impact, 50 million trees can remove one million tons of CO2 from our atmosphere. According to their video, Dave believes given the proper resources they have the potential to plant 500 million trees a year. Talk about optimism. Unlike most governments, Dave and crew have a Global Cooling Action Plan for reducing our human impact on the Earth. It can be broken down into three not so easy, but possible steps:

1. To encourage people around the world to use fossil fuels more efficiently, and even more important, to switch to renewable energy sources.
2. To protect old-growth trees and rainforests as “warehouses for carbon” and to harvest existing forests in a sustainable manner.
3. To plant trees in the tropics to offset the carbon dioxide that we produce.

 

Trees for the Future can plant one tree for a mere ten cents. Think about it, for one hundred dollars you can start a forest. Dave and Grace Deppner’s organization is simple, efficient, and making a huge difference in the lives of indigenous people who are able to make a living off their replanted homeland.

Those of you who wish you could have been around for the founding of Trees for the Future let me introduce you to a promising little start up from the American Midwest -- Living Land and Waters: Million Trees Project.

The Million Trees Project was founded in September 2007 by Jefferson Award Winner (this is America’s version of the Nobel Prize) Chad Pregracke, they aim to plant one million native trees around the rivers and communities of the Midwest in the next 5 to 10 years. Million Trees has already collected over 130,000 viable acorns from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Missouri with the help of community volunteers. As soon as these acorns grow to saplings (1 to 2 years) in the Living Land and Waters Nursery they will be given back to the communities who collected them for replanting. The goal is to reestablish species diversity on the major waterways around the Mississippi by replanting nut and fruit trees. These trees will not only provide food for dwindling wildlife populations, but will also help prevent erosion in an area that has been burdened by excessive flooding in recent years.

Want one more reason to plant trees? Living Land and Waters website says, “…trees are just plain beautiful and increase aesthetics everywhere they are planted.” Can’t argue with that! Any interested individual or group can apply for free trees.

Don’t feel bad if you aren’t a member of one of these stellar organizations or can’t find an organization like this in your community -- though a quick search of the Internet should yield results. Be proactive with your lonesome self -- go to a local nursery and buy a tree to plant or contact the Arbor Day Foundation which sells inexpensive trees that are native to your region. Remember: in the average 70-year life span of a single tree it will absorb 1.3 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Trees for the Future and the Million Trees project have inspired thousands of people around the world. By focusing on environmental organizations that apply resources to make a positive change we can help their movements expand and starve the polluters of the world of valuable PR. Like they say -- No press is bad press.