From Earth Day to Arbor Day

Arbor Day Earth Week Tree Planting on the Nature Conservancy Kangaroo Lake property in Baileys Harbor. Amero Gonzalez from Ephraim. Photo by Len Villano.

Fish Creek resident Wayne Kudick wants to put Door County on the map as a green destination.

“The origins came out of a project to increase the number of trees that are planted up here,” he said.

Kudick’s idea is to Celebrate Earth Week in Door County between Earth Day on April 22 and Arbor Day on April 29. He envisions a week devoted to green conferences and workshops, discussions, lectures, movies, contests, concerts, tree plantings and other ecologically inviting activities that could bring people to Door County before the official season has begun, as well as a celebration of the natural beauty of Door County for those who call it home.

Earth Week tree planting at the Nature Conservancy Mink River property with Gibraltar High School Students Ecology Club volunteers. Hanna Michalsen (red jacket), Alliko Peterson (black) and Maddie Fishler (blue jacket). Photo by Len Villano.

“To offer a full week of celebrations seemed especially relevant for Wisconsin, since the now worldwide Earth Day was a creation of our Wisconsin Senator Nelson’s first Earth Day, 41 years ago,” Kudick said. “The origins came out of a project to increase the number of trees that are planted up here.”

The concept had its first iteration in 2016 when what began as a tree planting initiative on preserved land turned into a week full of activities.

Bob Bultman of the Forest Recovery Project has been pushing the tree initiative, which he began in 2014 by planting 600 bare root seedlings at Kangaroo Lake. Last year more than 3,000 trees were planted at several locations with the help of high school students and volunteers.

“Spring tree planting is an invigorating time of the year and I am happy to note we will have more than twice as many high school students planting trees as last year,” he said. “I am encouraging members of the public to grab your shovel and join the effort at our public planting on Sat., April 29.”

But, he adds, if you don’t have a shovel, they’ll have one for you.

“Planting tree seedlings is easy and fun,” Bultman said. “The Door Peninsula was once completely forested from shore to shore so there is a lot of ‘catch up’ to do. Every native tree we can restore to the landscape brings benefits for everyone – wildlife included!”

Tax deductible donations to help the tree planting efforts can be made to Forest Recovery Project – LNRP, PO Box 151, Baileys Harbor, WI 54202.

Arbor Day Earth Week Tree Planting on the Nature Conservancy Kangaroo Lake property in Baileys Harbor. Photo by Len Villano.

Kudick is excited about the potential for an added, annual spring shoulder season green event.

“CEW’s even loftier, but appropriate, and attainable goal is to make Door County ‘the destination green place’ to live and learn from related environmental issues, green lifestyles and green business styles that exist here in Door County,” he said. “Why not Celebrate Earth Week as an added destination in spring to take in active learning, participatory vacations and professional conferencing? Could not these spring events add more revenues to small businesses and our overall economy and to prompt all of us to raise our Green standards even higher?”

Earth Day

April 22 marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. The idea for a national day to focus on the environment came to Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, then a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, after witnessing the ravages of a 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara, Calif. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, he realized that if he could infuse that energy with an emerging public consciousness about air and water pollution, it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. Nelson announced the idea for a “national teach-in on the environment” to the national media; persuaded Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Congressman, to serve as his co-chair; and recruited Denis Hayes from Harvard as national coordinator. earthday.org/about/the-history-of-earth-day/

Arbor Day

First celebrated in Nebraska on April 10, 1872, Arbor Day was the brainchild of Julius Sterling Morton (1832-1902), journalist and politician originally from Michigan. Throughout his long and productive career, Morton worked to improve agricultural techniques in his adopted Kansas and throughout the United States when he served as President Grover Cleveland’s Secretary of Agriculture. But his most important legacy is Arbor Day. In the years following, Morton’s idea spread across America and today all 50 states celebrate Arbor Day. In 1970, President Richard Nixon proclaimed the last Friday in April as National Arbor Day. arbor-day.net