Homage: in the wake of September eleventh, American Forests decided to do what we do best; plant trees - American Forest Annual Report 2001

American Forests, Summer, 2002

The year 2001 was a year full of challenges. The economic downturn was capped with despicable acts of terrorism. In the wake of September 11, AMERICAN FORESTS decided to do what we do best: plant trees. As we had done after World War I and subsequent conflicts, we launched a Memorial Trees campaign to help communities plant trees in honor of the victims and heroes of 9/11.

Joined by old friends like Eddie Bauer and new friends like IGA and Anheuser-Busch, AMERICAN FORESTS will plant at least one tree for every victim of the attack in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Washington, DC, and help communities all across America plant memorial groves. These special trees will help all Americans remember the past and look to the future.

AMERICAN FORESTS made the jump to television as we produced 13 episodes of AMERICAN FORESTS' TreeStories. The half-hour series begins in the spring of 2002 and will air weekly on public broadcasting stations across the country. TreeStories stars "Tree Guy" Jeff Meyer, AMERICAN FOREST'S Historic Tree nurseryman and the author of the popular book America's Famous & Historic Trees.

We expect Jeff's new show to help drive traffic to our website. We renovated our site and developed an in-house database tied to the web to help members and partners support and gain access to us.

Global ReLeaf Center

The Global ReLeaf Center helps people improve the environment by planting trees. With support from Eddie Bauer, Armstrong Wood Products, Crystal Geyser, IKEA, Balance Bar, and a host of individuals, organizations, and agencies, we planted 3.8 million trees in 2001 to restore damaged forest ecosystems on public lands. A generous U.S. Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant helped plant 150,000 trees in projects in Florida, New York, Arkansas, Lonisiana, and Alabama.

In partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, AMERICAN FORESTS helped make many more Americans aware of forest conservation issues related to wildfire. Through our Wildfire ReLeaf campaign we helped restore some of the nearly 7 million acres burned in 2000. Our Chesapeake ReLeaf program provided $85,000 in community grants to improve environmental quality in the Bay region with support from the U.S. Forest Service and Chesapeake Bay state foresters.

On Memorial Day 2,500 VFW Posts across America planted trees dedicated to the veterans of World War II as part of a program called "Operation Silent Witness."

On the international front, AMERICAN FORESTS and its partners planted 200,000 more trees in the Russian Far East for Siberian tiger habitat. Our partner there is the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Another 20,000 trees have been planted in Indonesia for mangrove forest restoration with partner Wetlands international and sponsor Larsen-Juhl. We continued reforesting the hills around Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Our spokesperson for Global ReLeaf Sarajevo, Olympic gold-medal skier Debbie Armstrong, visited Sarajevo in the fail to kick off the season's planting and raise international awareness of the need for trees for healthy environments.

We also welcomed the help of Oscarwinning actress Meryl Streep, who lent her voice to television PSAs urging Americans to plant trees for ecological restoration.

Urban Forest Center

The Urban Forest Center helps people put trees into the decisionmaking process as their cities and towns grow. The National Urban Forest Conference, with sponsorship from The Davey Tree Expert Company, Eddie Bauer, and the U.S. Forest Service, was held in Washington, DC, in late summer. It brought together 1,000 practitioners and enthusiasts from across America and abroad to share ideas and pioneer new techniques to help people appreciate the value of nature on our city streets. At the conference, AMERICAN FORESTS released a report that calculated the national urban tree deficit at more than 624 million trees.

The urban trees that do exist in America contribute benefits for clean air and water valued at more than $50 billion annually. With the support of the U.S. Forest Service, the GCA Casey Trees Endowment Fund, and the District of Columbia, AMERICAN FORESTS completed the first regional green layer analysis of the tree cover in the 635-square-mile area around our nation's capital. This data-rich green layer is now available to the more than 100 towns and cities in this region for use with our CITYgreen software, With this information, these local communities can model management scenarios and make day-to-day decisions about planning and growth management.

AMERICAN FORESTS also conducted an analysis of the Willamette Valley/Portland, Oregon, area, which is being used for local decision making in Salem, Oregon. Our urban forestry work benefits greatly from the support of high-tech partners ES RI, Earth Satellite Corporation, and ERDAS.

Forest Policy Center

The Forest Policy Center helps people understand and strengthen the links between healthy forests and vital communities. The Ford Foundation support for our community-based forestry program has enabled AMERICAN FORESTS to play a role in raising community-based solutions on the national agenda. Toward that end, we edited the volume Understanding Community-Based Forest Ecosystem Management, published by Haworth Press.