American Forestry Association 1990 annual report

1990 was a unique, challenging year for the American Forestry Association. AFA's voice was heard in a variety of settings from Limon, Colorado, to Mettmann, Germany, from the President of the United States to a Hungarian environmentalist. AFA was able to dramatically exceed its goals, bringing people and trees together to the benefit of both, and for the lasting improvement of the world's environment. And yet, in the face of those successes, we realize that some of the most daunting conservation problems of the century still face us.

Myriad conservation groups have sprung up in recent years, often competing with each other to be recognized as the expert at telling us how to be environmentally conscious. Everything ranging from modest suggestions to sermon-like diatribes against the eco-sins of modern man have bombarded people until the result is a confusing din and, too often, an overwhelmed and disinterested public. It is through this cacophony that the mainstream conservation message mush be heard if AFA is to succeed in reaching people.

Throughout its history, AFA has served as facilitator for rational discussion and compromise. At no time has that been more important than the past year. AFA often transcended the role of facilitator and became a hub, around which revolved citizen groups, businesses, and government acting in concert. The results? These are just a few:

* AFA information and education materials reached twice the number of people as in 1989. As a result, AFA's membership, regular and associate, grew to over 112,000--up 28 percent in one year's time!

* The number of grassroots projects exploded as people, working through citizen groups, local businesses, and government, took matters literally into their own hands. With the help of AFA's Global ReLeaf Fund, nearly 100 tree planting and care projects in communities across the country were directly assisted.

* For the first time in 116 years, AFA successfully launched a program that raises money from private sources to help support the reforestation of degraged ecosystems on public lands. With the strong support of state and federal land management agencies, and the financial support of individuals and businesses, the Global ReLeaf Heritage Forest program got off to a strong start with the restoration of almost 150 acres of key forest sites.

* AFA's mission was given a major boost as President George Bush announced his America the Beutiful campaign. His pledge, to encourage Americans to plant an additional billion tress per year for the next decade, brings programs like Global ReLeaf, along with all the other national, regional, and local tree-planting programs, together in a major national initiative.

* Corporate support for environmental programs skyrockedted as more and more businesses sought to show concern for their communities and their world. In 1989, corporations donated $360,000 to AFA's programs and projects. In 1990 that figure rose to $1.5 million.

* AFA and Global ReLeaf went international. With Canada ReLeaf off to a fast start under the able guidance of Friends of the Earth, initial efforts started in Costa Rica and England, and (would this have been thinkable five year ago?) an energetic and able program began in Hungary.

AFA pushed through ground-breaking measures on the legislative front:

* For the first time in history, the 1990 Farm Bill contained a full title on forestry.

* With the President's sponsorship, legislative action in the final session of the 100th Congress, which included a near doubling of the programs that assist non-industrial private forest landowners and an increasingly well-balanced national forest program, looked like an AFA wish list!

* As the battle over protecting the old-growth forecasts of the Pacific Northwest reached a fever pitch, AFA stood strong for a new approach based on science and professional management for shared and multiple purposes.

* An innovative partnership involving AFA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, State Foresters, and a host of experts from universities and the forest-products industry funded and coordinated several dozen new studies demonstrating the value of forests in stabilizing environmental and climate conditions.

From the halls of Congress to the forests of northern Michigan, from the devastation wrought by Hurricance Hugo in South Carolina to the streets of Seattle, AFA members played out the organization's theme to an appreciative audience: We must have more and better trees and forests, and people must learn about their relationship to trees and take positive action to improve those trees and forests. And, far from just talking our message, we fulfilled it: Groups that only a year ago did not know of one another are now working together under the Global ReLeaf banner; local governments, facing incredible budget crunches, have nonetheless taken important steps toward softening the hard life of city trees; corporations never before involved in environmental improvement have begun to look beyond the bottom line; and groups of youngsters from coast to coast now know the correct way to plant and care for a tree.