We’re reaching out to give Citizen Foresters and Citizen Forester trainees updates for the month of September! Month In Review In the month of August we hosted 2 After Work Tree Times (AWTT), a tree ID class, 2 BBQ & Beautify events, 3 Community Forestry Input Sessions, we graduated 2 new Citizen Foresters and boogied at the Green Gala- Let’s … More
Category Archives: Big Picture
Citizen Forester: August Update
CITIZEN FORESTER UPDATE! We’re reaching out to give Citizen Foresters and Citizen Forester trainees updates for the month of August! Month In Review This past month we hosted 4 After Work Tree Times (AWTT), 2 Citizen Forester Classes, a BBQ & Beautify event at Richmond Park, and we graduated 5 new Citizen Foresters- Let’s recap! … More
Time to nominate Grand Rapids’ next Mayors Tree of the Year!
If you’ve ever taken a Citizen Forester class with the Urban Forest Project, you probably already know that we open up class asking each participant to “tell us a crazy tree story or name your favorite tree.” Going around the room we have heard stories about a maple tree that someone climbed so high that … More
INVASIVE PESTS ARE EATING TREES LIKE THEY’RE POTATO CHIPS
In the 20th century, chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease decimated billions of U.S. trees growing in forests and lining urban and suburban streets. The tree diseases, caused by invasive pests—a wind borne fungus spore from Japan and a beetle from the Netherlands, respectively—changed the face of one American city landscape after another and cost … More
German Forest Ranger Finds That Trees Have Social Networks, Too
By SALLY McGRANE New York Times, JAN. 29, 2016 HÜMMEL, Germany — In the deep stillness of a forest in winter, the sound of footsteps on a carpet of leaves died away. Peter Wohlleben had found what he was looking for: a pair of towering beeches. “These trees are friends,” he said, craning his neck … More
Paris Climate Agreement: Cities Need Trees
San Francisco (January 12, 2016) — A Huffington Post editorial by Jad Daley, Director, Climate Conservation program at The Trust for Public Land, lays out the strong recognition in the final Paris climate agreement for urban trees. According to Daley, urban forests are an important and oft-overlooked piece of the carbon puzzle, providing about 8 … More
MSU has oldest continuous forestry club in the country
MSU may have the oldest Forestry Club in the country, dating back to 1902, but the club remains unknown to many due to the nature of their work. Founded by George C. Morbeck in 1902, MSU’s Forestry Club is considered to be the nation’s oldest continuous forestry club, according to the MSU Forestry Club’s Facebook page. … More
Protecting trees from above
When you think about NASA, you probably picture outer space, comets and galaxies. But there is also much to explore on our home planet Earth. We still have a lot to learn about the weather, the water cycle, Earth’s interior and our planet’s many ecosystems. And NASA doesn’t only research big systems like the atmosphere; … More
Big Tree Hunt
The 2014-2015 Big Tree Hunt is underway! About the Contest: ReLeaf Michigan created the Michigan Big Tree Hunt contest in 1993. Before the contest, Paul Thompson, a brilliant botanist, searched for Michigan’s big trees and kept records since the early forties. Today, we encourage Big Tree Hunting among all age groups to assist tree experts with tracking these … More
DNR: Insects, infections threaten Michigan trees
Most of Michigan’s 19.3 million acres of forest are in pretty good shape, with the biggest threats coming from invasive insects, fungal infections or a combination of both, according to the DNR’s annual forest health report. “We do have this list of quite a number of pests that are trying to threaten certain species,” said … More
