Let me plant a tree in your honor!

Georgianne Holland's Robin Bird Peace Pillow

Nestle and Soar is the name I've given to my folk art studio near the mountains of Colorado. Like the area in which I live, there are plenty of tree and bird images taking center stage here. I see them in my art, in my home, and in my mind. For instance, my new inventory of Tree Coupons from the Arbor Day Foundation arrived, and I am having so much fun sending them out to my Nestle and Soar customers and friends! When I arrange for a tree to be planted in a national forest in honor of a customer, it feels like I do more than admire trees--I actually add to the greening of our planet.

I'll admit that my own forest experiences are limited; Colorado of course, a few days in Georgia and California, but never (yet) to a tropical forest or the giant Redwood forest, or dozens of others. In the meantime, my radar is always searching for a better understanding of the natural forests around the world...here's what I've learned this week.

REDD- what it is, or perhaps, what it hopes to be.
70 developing forest countries could be eligible for REDD, or specified funds provided mostly by wealthy nations, to help those mostly poor countries succeed financially without cutting down their forests. REDD's ambition is to halve global deforestation by 2020. This unprecedented plan was one obvious success of last year's Copenhagen summit on climate change, I have learned. It happened in Oslo in May of 2009, and there met 58 nations, known as the REDD Partnership, and they negotiated to pledge $4.5 billion by 2012 to those eligible developing forest countries measured in "forest-carbon credits". Global climate change summits continue and this ambitious plan continues in development. For those poor countries who need to fell forests to create funds, the REDD plan gives them an alternative to the fund-supply that keeps these important forests growing and doing their environmentally crucial work.

"...if REDD is unprecedented, it is because so is the threatened climate calamity, and forests have a lead part in that. (Forests) are the cheapest large-scale carbon-sequestration option available: they actually consume the stuff. This presents a big opportunity. ...by one estimate, carbon dioxide equivalent to 40 parts per million could be extracted from the atmosphere by 2050. That would roughly match global emissions over the past three decades." What can we do, I ask? "Natural forests must be conserved...Above all, with the human population set to increase by half over the next 40 years, the world needs to work out where its food is going to be produced."
The Economist, Something Stirs, September 25, 2010.

I am a simple folk artist living and working in the great state of Colorado. As I continue to feel the overwhelm of how our planet, our leaders, and our fellow humans around the globe will react to the real threat of climate change and deforestation, I will continue to make art that captures the beauty of nature. I will also continue to gladly make arrangements to have planted many, many trees in our national forests. [Visit my Etsy shop to learn more.] On my bucket list is to visit all of America's National Forests. On my daydream list is to also visit forests around the world. I would love to hear about your forest experiences as well as your thoughts on climate change.

Peace and Health to All,
Georgianne