Champion trees
Do you have a champion tree on your property? What is a champion tree? It’s the largest known tree of its species in a given geographic area, according to the Department of Environmental Protection in Maryland. In fact, champion trees can be found in every state in the United States. A tree is registered as a champion based on a formula that includes circumference, height and crown spread. These trees stand as the largest trees within their species in each state.
When did the Champion Tree Program start? In 1875, the oldest nonprofit conservation organization was started called American Forests. Just one of its programs is the Champion Tree Program. This nonprofit does so much more. This organization created the first conservation periodical in the nation. The idea of a national forest system and the U.S. Forest Service originated with American Forests. With the collaboration of Franklin Roosevelt, they created the Civilian Conservation Corps.
Their most recent project is about restoring trees around the world. World Economic Forum and American Forests are in a partnership leading an organization whose goal is a global movement to conserve, restore and grow 1 trillion trees around the world. The link to this organization is https://1t.org. To date, they have grown 50 billion trees toward the effort of 1 trillion trees.
In 2020, their work extended into getting two acts passed in a bipartisan effort in July and August. The first act is titled Great American Outdoors Act, which is funding toward Land and Water Conservation. The second act is titled Replant Act, which is funding to replant 4 million acres of damaged forests. Over the next decade that will allow 1.4 billion trees to be planted. This provided some 49,000 jobs. According to American Forests, foresters have to replant 60% of the damaged forest to ensure that the right forest happens in the right place. Our increased severity with wildfires has reduced the capacity of nature to repair the forest. A forest now can only repair up to 40% of what the forest was once before the fire.
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