THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES

A serious investigation into the importance of trees as the “earth’s filter.”

New York Times contributor Robbins spent more than 10 years following the efforts of David Milarch and his Champion Tree Project. “A ‘champion’ is a tree that has the highest combined score of three measurements: height, crown size, and diameter at breast height.” The project’s goal “was to clone the champion of each of the 826 species of trees in the United States, make hundreds or thousands of copies, and plant the offspring in ‘living archival libraries’ around the country to preserve the trees’ DNA.” Robbins was at first skeptical, unconvinced of Milarch’s belief that the welfare of the entire planet lies within the old-growth trees that have lived for thousands of years. The author was especially dubious when Milarch discussed his near-death experience and a visitation by “light beings” who instructed him to begin the cloning project. However, Robbins’ thoughts changed as he followed Milarch from one giant tree to another: sequoias  on the coast of California, white oaks in Maryland, bristlecone pines in Colorado, a rare forest of dawn redwoods in China, stinking cedars in Florida and ancient yews in Europe. The sheer size of these trees brought awe; coupled with extensive research and interviews with leading environmental scientists, Robbins soon came to appreciate Milarch’s view. Because trees create oxygen, filter water and also can cleanse the atmosphere of large amounts of pollutants, the planting of trees “may be the single most important ecotechnology that we have to put the broken pieces of our planet back together.” The book contains drawings of the various trees, but many readers may wish for photographs.

A rousing call-to-action to plant trees to save the environment.