By Tom Rohrer
Vital to the survival of all of earth’s inhabitants, trees are amongst the most important living things in the world. A Thurston County based project is trying to replenish the supply across the area.
On Saturday, January 12, the Winter Holiday Grove Project held its planting work party in an un-forested area located off of Kaiser Road near the Evergreen State College. This coming Saturday, January 19, a second work party will be held at the McLane Nature Trail in West Olympia.
Ninety families are planting trees that have been in their possession since mid-December. They hope the trees beautify the area and thrive for decades to come.
The project, created through a partnership with Climate Solutions’ Norwest Biocarbon Initiative and the Capitol Land Trust (CLT), was a longstanding idea of Rhys Roth, the Director of Strategic Innovation at Climate Solutions. Working with Guy McGuire, Restoration Coordinator at Capitol Land Trust, and Kathleen Ackley, the Associate Director of CLT, Roth was able to implement the project into the community.
“My dad used to get live trees and plant them around the area. We also started doing it when my son was little. He’s 25 now, but we would plant some trees all over around Olympia for many years,” Roth said. “I thought to myself, this would be cool as a group project. My wife finally got tired of me talking about it and told me to make it happen. About four or five months ago, I began working to see if it was feasible. When I spoke to Capitol Land Trust, they said that sounded like a great idea. They wanted to become partners and sometime around October we made it official.”
The trees were delivered to Roth’s home from a nursery in Oregon. Initially, Roth hoped for around 30 families to sign up for the project, which would include the families acquiring and caring for the tree for a few weeks before planting it in the designated area. To his surprise, the interest was triple his original projections.
Over two days in the middle of December, the trees were distributed to around 90 families in the community. Roth said some families planted the tree in their yard, or placed it in an indoor or outdoor planter. Roth also noted that some families decorated the trees for the holiday season before returning them to the wild on January 12.
The high number of people participating in the project was somewhat of a shock to Ackley, but the outpouring of support is what she’s grown to expect from the Thurston County community.
“I’ve been in this area for about a decade and one of the things I’m impressed with is how much people care about the environment, nature and the surrounding ecosystem,” Ackley said. “The Land Trust organization has been successful because of that. This is their own back yard so they want to help. It’s a tangible investment for the future, and to be able to see it grow over time, it’s a seal of commitment.”
At the planting work party, both young and old citizens participated in the labor. The diverse group participation was a pleasure for Roth.
“It was a thrill beyond words and a delight. I asked some of those kids to come up and take a solemn pledge to come back when they’re old and bring a kid from the future and explain what happened,” Roth said. “The kids said they would do that. It was really special. It creates continuity through time to connect with the future.”
While it may be a small gesture in terms of a global scale, Roth says projects like this are helpful for the future.
“From a global standpoint, this is a very small gift,” Roth said. “But it’s a living present for people of the community 100 years from now. It won’t transform societies or fix the damage we’ve done. It’s a gesture showing the people in the future that we care for them.”
It appears both Climate Solutions and Capitol Land Trust will be working on similar projects in the future.
“I think that any opportunity for the community to get personally involved is absolutely worthwhile and we are delighted to be a partner with Climate Solutions on this project,” Ackley said. “We’ve conserved more than 5000 acres in southwest Washington and we have a lot of properties in need of restoration and will continue to look into that restoration.”
“A number of people said they want to do this next year, or inquired about annually doing something,” Roth said. “First, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. We didn’t have a playbook or tried and true method of doing it. We will focus on this weekend. And then we are looking to form a community or team in the future. Other communities are interested in as well. It’s an exciting time.”
The January 19 tree planting will take place at McLane Nature trail, located just past Overhulse Road on Mud Bay Rd heading west. It begins at 10 a.m.
Click on the links for more information on Capitol Land Trust and Climate Solutions.
