Arbor Day Foundation Honors Tree Planters
By Mike Avok, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Jun. 1–NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. — A tree planter from Africa is the winner of this year’s J. Sterling Morton Award, the highest individual honor given by the National Arbor Day Foundation.
Sebastian Chuw of Moshi, Tanzania, a botanist who has been studying environmental problems in that country for more than 30 years, will receive the award Saturday at the 35th annual Arbor Day Awards banquet at the Arbor Day Farm’s Lied Lodge & Conference Center.
The awards recognize the vision and work of tree planters around the world. This year, 14 individual planters will be honored, along with seven groups and two companies.
Chuwa has established more than 50 clubs to teach youths about the need to conserve. He has helped plant more than 1 million African Blackwood trees in Tanzania, and has helped create nurseries to lead the reforestation efforts of that tree.
“Sebastian’s dedication to community-supported initiatives and youth education has inspired a generation in his homeland to plant and celebrate the value of trees,” said John Rosenow, president of the Arbor Day Foundation.
The one Nebraska winner is a group called TREEmendous Arbor Day of Arapahoe, Neb. The group will receive the Celebration Award, which goes to the school, community or state program that best represents the spirit of the tree planters’ holiday.
TREEmendous was created by teacher George Probasco. Middle and high school students were selected to demonstrate and explain tree-related activities to elementary students, while high school choral groups sang Arbor Day songs and presented a play about tree planting.
More than 600 elementary students participated and each received a sapling to plant at home.
Here are the other award winners:
–Chuck Leavell, the keyboardist for the Rolling Stones, is one of three recipients of the Media Award, given in recognition of the power of the media to capture the imagination of the public. Leavell will be honored for authoring, along with Nicholas Cravotta, “The Tree Farmer.” The storybook is about the vital role trees play in our everyday lives.
–Majora Carter, Bronx, N.Y., is the recipient of the Lawrence Enersen Award for outstanding tree planting and conservation work at the community level. Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, which addresses land use, energy, transportation, water and waste policy to inspire solutions to revitalize the area. Sustainable South Bronx has started the Smart Roof Project, which promotes “green” roofs in the neighborhood.
–The National Football League’s Environmental Program will receive a Project Award for its Carbon Neutral Project, which addresses impacting the environment at the site of the Super Bowl. Through this project, the NFL has planted trees before the previous three Super Bowls to offset the estimated release of carbon as a result of Super Bowl-related events. The NFL has also begun the Super School Tree Nursery Project, which teams local schools with tree-planting agencies.
–Enterprise Rent-A-Car and The Home Depot Foundation are the recipients of the Promise to the Earth Award, which recognizes sustained commitment and leadership by a corporation that joins with the Arbor Day Foundation on special projects. Enterprise Rent-A-Car has pledged $1 million a year for the next 50 years to plant trees in national forests that have been damaged by wildfire. The Home Depot Foundation partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation on a nationwide tree-planting campaign in 20 cities during the past two years in which 20,000 trees were added urban forests.
–Ray Tretheway of Sacramento, Calif., will receive the Frederick Law Olmsted Award for exemplary tree planting and conservation work at the state or regional level. Tretheway, a city councilman for Sacramento, serves as the executive director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, which is dedicated to educating people about the importance of trees and mobilizing citizens to plant and care for trees.
–Ruth Wilson of Bowling Green, Ohio, will receive the Caroline French Morton Award, which was established to honor the spirit of stewardship of its namesake. Wilson is a professor emeritus of special education at Bowling Green State University and is considered one of the nation’s foremost experts on the need for connecting young children with nature.
–James Huff of Taylorsville, Miss., Bob and Margaret Kintigh of Springfield, Ore., and Steve Woodard of Cottage Grove, Ore., are the recipients of the Good Steward Award. The award honors those who practice stewardship through conservation work on private land. Huff is a pine tree farmer and a noted conservationist who believes no portion of a tree should go unused. He served on the Rebuilding Commission for the State of Mississippi following Katrina.
Bob and Margaret Kintigh were named the 2006 Tree Farmers of the Year by the American Forest Foundation. The Kintighs turned their ranch into a productive Christmas tree farm. Bob worked as an state senator from 1997-99, and was instrumental in creating the Oregon Afforestation Act of 1995 that provides landowners incentives to plant trees.
Woodard, a retired Oregon State University extension forester, owns a 200-acre tree farm in Lane County, Ore. He selectively harvests about 30 truckloads of wood each year while he reforests that land with about 7,000 mixed conifers each year. He led the effort to provide logs and timber for Lied Lodge & Conference Center.
–Planting For Growth from Weed, Calif.; Audubon Mississippi; and the Sycamore Land Trust from Bloomington, Ind., will receive Project Awards.
Planting for Growth, a project of the Pacific Northwest District of Kiwanis International, was created to recognize new members in the district. Planting for Growth plants a tree for each new member, and to date more than 12,000 trees have been planted in local communities.
The Sycamore Land Trust’s mission is to preserve the disappearing landscape of south-central Indiana. So far, it has protected more than 3,700 acres in eight counties. The Land Trust also sponsors an environmental education program aimed at enhancing the appreciation of nature. It has planted more than 54,000 trees in area parks since 1997.
Audubon Mississippi collaborated with The National Arbor Day Foundation on the Katrina Tree Recovery Program. More than 64,000 trees have been distributed to gulf area residents in the aftermath of the hurricane.
–Earl and Wanda Barrs of Buckley County, Ga., the City of Kent (Wash.) Youth Tree Education Program, and Tree Amigos 4H Club of Anniston, Ala., will be presented with an Education Award. Education Awards recognize model programs throughout the United States and the world.
For 30 years, Earl and Wanda Barrs have hosted forestry education field trips to their tree farm, Gully Branch. More than 5,000 pre-kindergarten to high school-aged students have visited the farm to learn about the importance of stewardship.
The City of Kent’s Youth Tree Education Program started in 2000, and this year nearly 400 students helped plant trees in area parks for Arbor Day. Each year, city staff members visit local schools and teach students the proper way to plant trees, and are then given a native tree or shrub to plant at school and monitor the growth of the plant.
The Tree Amigos 4H Club is a horticultural therapy program started by David West of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Service. This program joined Calhoun County master gardeners with offenders housed at Coosa Valley Youth Services. A greenhouse and nursery were built, and plants propagated there by the students are sold two or three times of the year to the community. Students earn credit toward a high school diploma.
–The Leaf Man, by Lois Ehlert of Milwaukee, and TREE: A New Vision of the American Forest, by James Balog of Boulder, Colo., will receive the Media Award. The Media award is given in recognition of the power of the media to capture the imagination of the public.
Ehlert’s The Leaf Man is a collection of leaves she found during her travels across the country. The author takes the reader on a journey of where the leaves may have traveled by the wind.
TREE: A New Vision of the American Forest is a celebration of state and national champion species. Balog, an acclaimed photographer, climbed atop neighboring trees to capture species of some of the nation’s best and oldest trees.
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