The Story of David and the Black Willow!!!
Tucked away in a very small community in northern Michigan, Copemish, is a very large project! A quaint little non-profit called the Champion Tree Project.
What is a champion tree? A champion tree is judged to be the largest of it's species.
So why a project? According to David Milarch, co-founder of the Champion Tree Project, the group was formed, "in 1996 in northern Michigan to essentially archive genetics and Arichival Living Libraries across the country and around the world of the last of the Old Growth Forest Genetics of Trees."
According to David, who was in the shade tree nursery business, they noticed that many of their stock was dying off and changing. Nursery stock that had always done well was not surviving. Through research they found that they were losing many species mainly to changes in the environment, "air and water quality, acid rain and new diseases. They began a quest for trees that had immune systems that were much stronger to take the climate change, take the attack from the air of acid rain and ozone pollution and be able to withstand the changing challenges that all trees are going through."
Have you ever heard a variety of willow tree called the Black Willow?
I hadn't until just recently.
What an interesting tree.
David Milarch is cloning a Champion Black Willow found smack dab in Traverse City, Michigan. This tree measures about 11 foot in diameter across the trunk.
So what is so great about this tree? Science has proven, according to Milarch, the Black Willows are a tree that extract mercuries, heavy metals, dioxins and the really bad stuff out of water and soil.
Can you imagine using the environment to clean the environment of all the stuff we have dumped into it?
Can you imagine a living organism that can actually survive on mercury?
I will be bringing you more information on the Champion Tree Project in coming months. In the meantime, you can follow this link to read an interview, from Turtle Creek Casino, with David Milarch. This interview gave the basic framework for my article.
Mr. Milarch and the Champion Tree Project is cloning THOUSANDS of trees with the tribe at Turtle Creek Casino in Manistee, Michigan to distribute to schools and environmental groups all over Northern Michigan...and throughout the world.
To what end? Remediation of rivers, streams, lakes and watersheds, naturally. Is that really important in Michigan?
YES! Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes which contain about 84 percent of North America's surface fresh water and about 21 percent of the world's supply. Yes. This is very important.
To steal from Paul Harvey...stay tuned for "the rest of the story!"
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