Donations For Positive Change

Last night, there was an excellent investigative program on Public Television. It related to the Citizens United case that the Supreme Court of the United States of America decided in favor of the idea that money equals speech. Today, I am broke, so I guess I can't "speak" much. The program showed evidence that at least one 501(c)4 organization has been coordinating with campaigns across the country to deny fair elections across the nation. I don't want to go on and on about the injustice of a system that allows the 1% to give unlimited amounts of money for political speech, that is not my goal for this post. Even though our democracy has been purchased out from under us, what I want to point out here is what can be done to create a better world for all of us.

As long as the 1% continues to purchase elections and as long as the government refuses to reign in the powerful interests that hide behind these 501(c)4 organizations, I will personally try to educate and inform folks about the travesty that we still naively call democracy. I will also continue to offer insight into environmental issues that come from the raping of the planet, poisoning the poor and denying rights to the disenfranchised. One of the things that I will continue to do is to teach my readers, our guests and the general public about the systems that allow our species to thrive as well as those that make us sick, contribute to Idiocracy and genetically predispose us to death and disease. The wealthy just want to keep their cash flow alive and will sacrifice the habitability of our planet every time it bumps up against their greedy vision of more.

Ironically, the largest number of donations that ECO-Tours receives are from people who are in the bottom 10% of the earnings scale, not because we tailor our message to them, not because they are swimming in cash and are looking for a tax break. No, they give because they realize that being efficient about spending those precious dollars is our way of getting the biggest bang for the buck. If we receive $1,000, we can turn that into a thousand trees and we will work hard to find enough willing and helpful hands to plant them as quickly as possible in appropriate areas where they can thrive. If those thousand trees are planted in places where they do well, there is the possibility of recreating about three acres of forest when they mature. We have planted thousands of trees again this year and are always happy to accept donations to help us continue our efforts.

The deceptive ads and outright lies that are told by political ad campaigns are expensive. The wealthiest among us feel the need to be allowed to fund these vitriolic falsehoods. They call it democracy, or defend the practice by saying that it is "legal". I, for one, challenge the idea that money is speech. I remember the phrase "put your money where your mouth is", but this state of affairs has become ridiculous. As the vast majority of citizens are squeezed ever more tightly in the pincers of corporate greed and the extractive methods that they bring to capitalism, taking away their voice through poverty is both inhumane and unjust.

What we offer through our ECO-Tours is the very real chance to change our nation from the ground up. We will not waste our dollars lying about anyone, we will not try to influence elections. We will not ask the billionaires to give us money so that we may push their political ideology or buy them politicians. We buy and plant trees. Hundreds of thousands of living creatures, including humans are benefiting from the trees that we have planted already. We ask for donations to keep this work going. Our Paypal account can be found by using the account number tnsaladino42@hotmail.com. We look forward to continuing to plant trees and wish that there were a way to spread the word about the injustice of big money running the political process. As those who were paying attention this week may know, Green Party candidate Jill Stein and her vice presidential running mate were jailed on the night of the second to the last debate for just trying to go onto the campus where the debate was being held. Locked up and locked out of discussions, this third party voice had just as much right to share the stage as the well-heeled, corporately owned, figureheads.

Our efforts are made to build soils, protect water quality, fix carbon and make the planet a little more stable. If these goals are important to you, please donate to our cause.

Avoided Costs

In our rush to produce, we often forget the true cost of doing business. Especially in fields that we describe as competitive, the focus seems to get skewed to the speed at which we can produce, or bring products to market, keeping costs as low as possible or touting features that will give us the "edge" over the competition. Although there are things to be said about all of these demand-side parts of the equation, there are many more aspects of supply-side economics that need to be considered in the mix. As awareness rises about the impact of our decisions in the marketplace, consumers are expanding the list of qualities that they are looking for in the products and services that they use. Many folks who read these posts regularly might think that all commercial interests rub me the wrong way, but that certainly is not the case. I too consume products and services, but with an eye to efficient and sensitive business models that make sense to me.

If I see a building with high ceilings, massive north-facing windows, little or no insulation and co-mingled garbage overflowing from their dumpsters, no matter what they offer, I will be looking elsewhere to meet my needs. energy is a major cost of doing business and those facilities that are designed to scream throughput must certainly have to tack those costs on to whatever they sell. Similarly, if I can see that the owners and managers are serious about recycling, that they keep the thermostat down in the winter and allow their buildings to run a little warmer in the summer, it goes a long way to make me feel better about spending my dollars there. Likewise, if the employees seem happy and well-cared for, I assume that working conditions for their laborers are better than places where the workers seem beaten down, depressed and listless.

Especially in competitive markets, running a tight ship and treating employees well mean much more to a growing segment of the market than many larger businesses realize. Two of my pet peeves are Trader Joe's and Whole Foods Market. Just because you offer organic products, won't gain you street cred amongst those of us who detest the Wal-mart business model. Get big or get out has been the mantra for agriculture for decades and the same out-dated refrain is making inroads to every sort of business. In their attempts to grow into top spot amongst their competitors, businesses frequently overlook the simple fact that a penny saved is a penny earned. I work periodically for an exhibition company that used to compete with hundreds of other companies across the country to bring conventions to cities across America. In the old days, they had competition and worked hard to keep costs down. Now, they have bought nearly all of their competitors and without any real threat to their position they have become adept at cost cutting. Oddly, since they now buy virtually all of their materials and equipment from China, virtually everything they use for a show goes in the trash when they are done with it. The wooden tables with steel legs do get reused, the extension cords get re-used and the pipe and drape travels from show to show, but the skirting on the tables, the table covers and even the garbage cans get thrown in the trash. The costs of this behavior are felt most strongly in China, where workers are exposed to hazardous chemicals in production facilities, but here too, we pay the costs with absolutely no benefit in higher taxes and tipping fees, waste handling costs and ultimately having to create new landfills when our current ones fill up more quickly.

The reason that this mind set thrives is because we offer corporate welfare in the form of publicly owned landfills, built with tax dollars, but those who fill them up are not charged the full price according to their use characteristic. In this particular case, the people using the dumpsters are not the people paying to have the waste removed. Miraculously, someone else is forced to cover the costs of bad business decisions. By throwing away all of the table skirts, you can avoid the cost of washing them of handling them in ways that allow re-use to occur, driving down labor costs as well. this means that the company has more money and spends less as well. In their world-view these avoided costs are good for them, but for the workers, it shaves away their income and increases the stress on their personal budget. Sometimes, doing the right thing can benefit both sides of the balance sheet, but the trend seems to be that business only looks to their own pocketbook. I remember learning that even the garbage cans got thrown away. several weeks earlier I had to buy a small garbage can for a friend and it cost just a few dollars, but seeing hundreds stacked up and thrown away I got to thinking. This happen every day, across the country, perhaps hundreds of thousands of perfectly good plastic bins per year make their way to the local landfills across our great nation annually, after just one day's use. The most insidious evil is that on paper, it looks like a good idea. who wouldn't like to send workers home an hour or two earlier and pocket the cash that would be needed to pay them if they had more work?

Well, you see where I'm going with that. Avoided costs mean something completely different to the large corporate interests than they do to you or me. I do not begrudge the Chinese their "work" either, I just hate the idea of them supplying us trash. I did have to rent my own dumpster recently. we did a major home renovation and removed tons of  debris from our home. As much as possible, we saved what could be re-used, burned safely in our fire pit, or recycled. I understand that the time spent sorting our waste added time to the project and I understand that the money we saved by cutting waste removal costs by about half probably would not be "worth" the effort, but it was the right thing to do. Until we find a way to penalize corporations and small businesses for making the wrong decisions, or until all consumers get on the same page about our responsibilities to the marketplace, there will continue to be abuses of the resources of the planet, difficult times for workers and massive subsidies for the worst offenders. I realize that we are all under ever-increasing stress over how we make our living, but the sense of satisfaction that comes when we learn about the industries that we support is truly priceless.

Pipelines Leak

This is an unavoidable rule. At the very least, at some point the entire pipeline will "run dry" and the residue that will remain in the pipe will be lost to the environment. The equipment that pumps and pressurizes oil and gas, hell, even water, leak. Pipelines leak, that's what they do. When we tipple, or top up, there are fugitive emissions that are toxic and deadly, fluid leaks, that's what it does and the higher the octane, the more releases there are. The history of pipelines is rife with catastrophic releases as well as a burgeoning business in prostitution, alcohol and drugs during the construction phase. The boom in any economy based on raping the earth is at least as ugly as the bust. Currently there are those who advocate creating "jobs" through exploiting Mother Earth's greatest gifts. They call them "resources" and claim that they have no value if they are not exploited. I, as a humble citizen of the planet say, "No." to their claims. We do not yet understand the true value of these reserves. We cannot fathom the purpose of billions of years of evolution of life on our planet. Perhaps, in some way that we do not yet understand, the oil acted as a reservoir for the earth's inner warmth, protecting us not only from the heat generated in the core, but perhaps even ameliorating tectonic movement. Won't we have egg on our faces if the very fluids and gasses that we are tapping out contribute to making the planet habitable? Our collective myopia has stung us badly in the past, why do we expect that with respect to fossil fuel, we have all the answers?

The time has come to re-think the value of oil and gas left in the ground. In the not-too-distant future, if there is any left at all, the price promises to continue to climb. The only way to get beyond this is to trend toward bioregional tribes and local sustainable communities in which energy and food, as well as most commodities are produced locally, if not, regionally. Technologies exist for low cost solutions to such difficulties as short growing seasons, poor soil conditions or inadequate rainfall. What we lack is the will. That is the worst thing about losing so many old-timers so quickly. The true meaning of conservation was to conserve, above all else, spend as little as possible as much of the time as possible. It was my grandfather who told me about the three minute shower, he was a true conservative. In my quest to save water, I have done him one better, reducing both the flow of water in my shower significantly and reducing the time spent there even further.

The ugly flip side of  his beliefs was that, above all else, the company that he worked for had his best interest in mind. He expected that if his boss told him to dump toxic chemicals into the Menominee River as the preferred disposal method, that there was enough water and current in the river to dilute it enough so as not to be a danger. After all, he liked to fish in the river. His first child, a son, was disfigured and an invalid, who blessedly died in his teens. Luckily, his daughters all thrived, though one of their sons, my cousin has had various names for his "condition". Now, the least judgmental term you might use is to say he has autism. My grandmother used chemicals that led to her cancer in her independent dry cleaning business, Grandpa got esophageal cancer from the chemicals that his company exposed him to. The current trend to loosen regulations designed to protect the public from industrial chemicals has got to stop. We need to understand the basic fact that "job creators" care far more about the money than the ultimate effects of their actions on people living nearby, their employees or the environment. The bigger the interests and the further removed from the community they become, the less they care.

The pipeline of history itself has sprung a leak. I will continue to attempt to transfer down to future generations my grandfather's ethic of never spending a penny if you could find a way to make due with what you have. I will fix what I have, get creative with things that cannot be used for their original intended purpose and treat as much of my waste as possible as valueable resources for another process and learn to adapt in ways that minimize waste in all my activities. Distributed abundance is nearly inconceivable under our current economic system. For centuries we have been told that there is a dog eat dog world out there and we have to be tough to survive. We have been told that nature is just a fight for survival in a harsh and dangerous world. My experience has proved to me that these concepts are flat out wrong. In nature, abundance and diversity lead to critters being well supplied and cared for in ways that science can hardly understand. In the area I'm from, everyone had enough if they all shared what they had. Similarly, in nature, whatever is unused by on organism, even the bodies of the dead, are gifts to other organisms that use the "waste" as resources for their life cycles. There is mutual cooperation amongst the species, each one playing a vital part in the cycling of water, nutrients and energy.

 In my experience, we never owned the cabin, but someone close to us always owned a cabin that we could all use. The community was like an egg in flour, it held us together and turned it into more than the parts, we gelled as a community. In "those days", we made many sacrifices, invested our resources in one another and we will have to experience this way of life again if we are to survive as a species. Back then, you might have to sleep on the floor, but having people over to sleep on your floor was the cost of being able to travel at reasonable cost. There was always at least a friend of a friend with a boat or truck if one needed to borrow what they could not afford themselves and the multiple layers of relationship sustained more and more layers of "economic" symbiosis as well. Each one of us had a great deal of say in what we did and who we were friends with. There was an identity regionally and community-wide that seems not to exist today. The biggest and best rewarded wheeler dealers in today's economy are far removed from the places they affect through global financial racketeering. The dollars have a virtually unimpeded flow for the wealthiest, yet the real wages that the vast majority of the population have to make due with continue to shrink.

Each time we invest in sustainability, we stem the flow of wealth going into the pipeline that leads to the rich man's pocket. Each time we take a step in the right direction, we keep more dollars in our community, the local environment, simultaneously, we reduce the harm done to the planet and enrich our neighbors. I filled the fuel tank in my car about a month ago. It is still nearly half full. While many folks bemoan the fact that fuel has more than doubled in cost over the last four years, I wish it were not subsidized. I would pay triple the current cost happily if we could produce it without the environmental catastrophes that we have become numb to. Even as I teeter at the edge of poverty, I am wealthy in friends, cared for better than most folks in the world and give thanks for the abundance of the world around me. The culture of capitalism claims to run a tight ship and to thrive on efficiency but anyone who has participated in corporate culture will recognize that throughput, energy and materials that are wasted in the process of production are the rule rather than the exception. Even in the pipeline that brings goods and services to the market, objects and energy leak out. When we look more closely into the corporate culture of greed, we will find the seeds of our own destruction already sown and sprouted. These sprouts are well-rooted and fed a constant diet of nutrients derived from manure in the form of lies. The idea that we can basically roast the Earth, as they do when exploiting tar sands, and capture enough energy to offset the billions of kiloquads of energy required to extract the oil is a bit like the designs for perpetual motion machines.

We need to look to the past to orient ourselves to the future. in 1950, the cost of producing oil was two dollars per barrel. Gasoline was $0.18/gallon. (approx. 4 liters) It was basically free. The oil industry has always been the most profitable industry ever conceived by humans. By 2000, the cost of production had risen to 20-25 dollars per barrel. Gasoline was ten times as expensive as well. The costs of production continues to rise and the last two peaks in production costs were $60/barrel (in Aug. 2005) and eighty dollars per barrel (in Aug. 2008) This, as it happens, may have been the ultimate peak in peak oil. Human beings were extracting around 75 million barrels of oil each day. Unless we spend much larger amounts of money extracting the hard to get oil that is left, our world-wide production will continue to fall, prices will continue to rise and supply will dwindle. Peak oil used to be a concept, now it has become historical reality. Pipelines will not "solve" our problem. Only true conservation will change the rules of the game. Waking up to these important facts sooner, rather than later is the only way to save our communities and lessen the stress that we all face in the future. Organizing on the principle of lack, dissolution and fighting over "scarce" resources has to be supplanted with distributed abundance or we will continue to face mounting environmental damage, increased challenges to our health, threaten our own security, as well as the security of our planetary neighbors and continue to put the whole planet and her ecosystems in jeopardy.

ECO-Tours remains committed to teaching sustainability and sharing with our guests and readers the truth about our ecological impact as individuals, communities and cultures. We have an entire curriculum based on leaving the planet and her people better off and simultaneously producing abundance where Corporate America has created lack. To better understand these ideas, get out in nature, plant a tree, sit with the critters that inhabit the landscape, learn to understand their part in making the planet hospitable to humans. only then can you begin to see the stark contrast between sustainability and rape of the planet. Only then will you begin to know the value of leaving the planet a little better off by our passing. we used to teach orienteering, but as we are finding now, orienting ourselves to the whole of our planetary ecosystem is even more important than finding our way in the woods.

Driving With Sun Power

The Midwest Renewable Energy Association, of Custer, Wisconsin hosts an annual tour of solar homes. Today. I am going on an ECO-Tour of a home that uses the sun to charge their Nissan Leaf, allowing them to drive every mile with sun power! I will try to post some pictures once I see it. I only rode a few mile in a leaf so far, but the experience was sublime. The cost per mile is less than one fifth the cost of internal combustion vehicles and although the range is limited, it has more than enough range for most folks' commute.

We all use sun power, it is just that traditional cars and trucks require fossil fuel and electric vehicles allow direct conversion of sunshine to electricity, thus liberating us from the fossil fuel addiction.
 

Benefits For Guests

Over the years, ECO-Tours has taken hundreds of individuals out on plant-ins, stuck around our place to for potting up parties to put large numbers of trees into landscape pots to fill our nurseries, and invited people to join us on tours of zero-net-energy homes, walks in the natural areas across northeast Wisconsin and taken scouting and release parties as well. now, before you get the wrong idea, a release party is really just a better name for weeding parties. In essence, we are releasing the seedling trees from the encroaching weeds that often colonize disturbed ground. I have heard so many wonderful comments from our fellow travellers, our guests and those in search of their own path to sustainability to know that there are undeniable benefits for the people who come on ECO-Tours as there are to the planet, soils and the wildlife that abounds in the areas that we restore to a more natural state.

 The exercise that we get is always aerobic and refreshing, because we can work at a slow enough pace to not worry about overdoing it. There is no time constraint on how long it takes to plant a dingle tree and we encourage guests to have fun, not work like dogs. Many people comment on how good it feels to be part of our restoration efforts, if only for the opportunity to be out in nature and lend a hand in a solution to so many problems instead of being part of the great ignorance that allows the Earth to be mistreated. there is a stretching and bending that occurs while planting a tree that is healthy, invigorating and if there is any soreness after an hour or two of effort, it is just a reminder of how sedentary our lives have become.

The emotions that our guests have spoken of are complex and wonderful as well. Being part of a solution and learning techniques that benefit the planet empowers and relieves the guilt that many feel about not doing enough to heal the damaged planet. I recently talked to one ecotourist who felt that leaving such a positive mark on the planet helped him to make a commitment to the future that would not have been possible in any other way. Some folks like to attend plant-ins along their daily commute. This is especially exciting when they begin to see growth and changes that "their" trees make as they mature. We frequently hear stories about how our guests utilize the knowledge they gain while on tour to enhance their own property and that the skills that they gain during one of our events leads them to cultivate changes in their lives beyond planting more trees.

Being part of growing something bigger than ourselves also helps spur a trend toward growth in our lives as well. Just as true healers heal themselves as well as their patients through the process, our fellow travelers grow as well as the trees they plant. The seeds of knowledge that we put in place often grow to affect the lives of people we meet without even realizing it. there is a strong movement afoot worldwide to reassess both the costs and benefits of serving economic interests above human interests and exploiting both the Earth and her people for profit. that is why we have no set "fees"
. We do ask that people come with the goal of having fun, doing a little work (of course) but also trusting that those who do attend will give an appropriate amount for the insights and experiences that they receive. Yesterday, one of our board members explained that she is now calculating the cost of travel by how long it takes. $10/per hour is what she has calculated it to cost to drive her vehicle. I have always used a calculation of $1 per mile (including half the cost as damage to the environment) To put these numbers in perspective, it costs about $10 per tree for us to plant them, factoring in the cost of seedlings, dirt to pot them in, water for our nurseries, transport to the site and planting. We do not factor in the human elements of time, work or care because all the human effort that goes into our programs is donated. As far as I know, there are very few 100% volunteer labor organizations on the planet. The rewards that we receive from our participation in these efforts is, in many ways, more valuable than money and our philosophy is that we certainly need trees far more than we need money anyway, so it seems to "fit" our ideals to only ask for people to give what they can to further our efforts.

The spiritual aspects of our work are a bit harder to talk about, but if you listen closely to the stories that our travelers tell about their ECO-Tours experience confirm that their lives have often been qualitatively changed by the experience. The enlightenment that they reflect in their comments hint at the depth of their awareness changing and with it a greater sensitivity to issues surrounding sustainability as well. We often ask folks who have received trees to send us a donation when they see the first bird alight on the branches, when the fall colors begin to dazzle them, or when they are finally able to stretch out under the shade of their trees. When they have confirmation that the trees are, in fact, seen to be making their lives a little better is a great time to make a donation through Paypal or send us a check. For our guests, we often ask them to be aware of insights and changes in their lives that they have made because of their time with us and to send what they can to allow us to continue our important work. This past week, we were only able to plant another 2,000 trees, but if we had more funding coming in, we could plant many, many more.

It has been said that the most hopeful act we can engage in is the planting of a tree. I have seen seen perhaps billions of them and attest to the fact that, for me, and as a fellow traveler along the path to sustainability, the tree is a strong symbol of hope and abundance growth and shelter. In the turbulent and often hostile world that we find ourselves in, these are all qualities that we need more of. please give what you can to support our important work and if you would like us to develop an  ECO-Tour for you, that you can use in your area, let us know, we will work something up for you. Again, our doors are always open to guests and if you get near Northeast Wisconsin, or are planning a trip to the area, let us know in advance and we will work to craft an experience for you that is both fun and rewarding, sharing what we have learned helps make the world a little better than we found it.

Blessed Be and namaste'

How Can One Say What A Tree Means To Us?

When I began to plant trees, I didn’t have any idea how much they would eventually change my life. I didn’t know that trees themselves can inform your understanding of the world around you or that eventually I would “speak” for them. The first that I remember planting was a blue spruce that transformed itself from a tiny sprig, like many of us got as students on Arbor Day, to eventually dwarf the house. Since that time, I have come to know thousands of tiny sprigs. More often than not they do the same as that first tree, changing vacant land into habitat, creating from dirt, sun, water and the very air itself, a structure that supports creatures big and small. Trees are essentially the high rise apartments of the natural world. The change in me, that the trees I have planted have wrought, are greater than words can express, but I will nonetheless try.

Learning the scents of so many trees and the changes that they go through around the wheel of the seasons has given my blood vitality that comes only from being in the presence of basswood flowers in early Spring, elder blossoms in Midsummer, birch must in the Fall and the antiseptic smells of cedar swamps in the dead of Winter. Without these sublime essences, my life would be much more cold and hostile. The richness of memory and understanding that comes from learning the stories, held in the very wind itself has enriched my knowing of not only where I am, but who I am as well. When my breath can be absorbed and put to use by these sentinels of hope, I am given heart to continue to do my best in the face of adversity. Each and every tree has a story to tell if we can only learn how to listen.

I have been amazed at the myriad shapes, sizes and structural elements, not only within a single species of tree, amongst individuals, each confronting their own environment, but amongst the many different species as well. I love my insight into biomes and my budding understanding of why certain species like to congregate together, depending on light, soils, terrain and moisture content in the soil.

Appealing as well are the creaks and moans that issue from a tree when it is buffeted by the winds of approaching storms or the ebullient rustle of the willow in the slightest breeze. The respite one gets from the first squalls of rain and the noise that the canopy makes while being pelted during a cloudburst on a hot summer day, even  the drops that fall at random moments after the rain is done and gone all have stories to tell us, if we listen.

Tony C. Saladino Director-ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc.

Benefits For Donors

We often are told that benefits accrue only in our accounts wallets or pocketbooks. The benefits that accrue because of ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. eclipse those that can be measured in euros, dollars or yuan. Just knowing that you are part of a revolution that will not be televised has the power to shift our point of view. In the greater scheme of things, we may inhabit the only planet with life on it, we may be utterly alone in the universe but on a personal level, if this is all we will ever have, we must develop ways of interacting with it that leave the planet better than we found it. Being from the state of Wisconsin, I have had values that include what we call The Wisconsin Idea. The concept is that the state university system has no boundaries. The research done there and the knowledge that is available from within the ivory towers belong to the people of the state. The notion includes the need for institutions to reach out to the citizenry for ideas, inspiration and most importantly, the knowledge of not only what is truly needed, but how to go about getting it. From the ground up. A great misguided effort to "save" people from their ills is often engendered when well-meaning people with a bit of education begin the process of telling people what they need or how to get it. ECO-Tours has a philosophy that is diametrically opposed to the top down theory of management. This is true about people as well as the planet.

Donors to most environmental organizations have to foot the bill for staff and advertizing, because without these important elements, nothing could get done. At ECO-Tours of Wisconsin, we would do our work and positively transform the landscape  not for pay, but for the sake of doing it. We are not very well known because we refuse to play the game the way other not-for-profit organizations do. We rarely provide press releases to the media, we certainly do not waste valuable donations on printing documents or tooting our own horn in the media and we certainly do not want to hire staff that will suck up resources without planting a single tree. We have proven over the years that we are committed to reforesting denuded areas with native forest cover and because we have specialized in this simple act since the mid-eighties, we have learned to become leaner, more efficient and more effective with the donations that we receive. Our group began with just one person, using their tax returns to buy trees wholesale. Other than the ($15 annual fee, later, under a Republican administration, raised to $35) that was required to get a tax-ID number from the state, we spent all of our income on tree seedlings. In those early years, we often planted one to two thousand trees each Spring and gathered tree seeds and planted them, expanding our reach in the Fall. Each dollar that we had available has to do the most work possible, otherwise we would quickly see our effectiveness undermined.

Getting the biggest bang for your buck involves being lightening fast, efficient and graceful. In a world of dog eat dog commercialism it may be hard to understand, but we believe in abundance and the concept of enough. Trees require enough rain, enough soil and enough protection from harsh conditions to thrive. Over the years we have come to understand from the ground up, what kind of conditions support life and what sorts of decisions make it untenable. We have had donors who believe that we are a not-for-profit landscaping service, but that misses the mark for us. Most landscapers ask, "What kind of tree do you want in the middle of the front yard and do you want columnar or globe bushes around the foundation of your home?" We ask landowners, "Where will you allow forest to regenerate?"  We never guarantee trees will survive, as many landscapers do, but we only plant species that will have a reasonable chance of thriving where we plant them and since we never charge for our work, we can invest the time required to make sound plans for planting and work with the goal of improving environmental quality rather than establishing a series of exotic artifacts that do not belong in the native landscape. Making the most of what we have is a microcosmic reflection of what the trees we plant do each and every day. There are plenty of examples of how not to go about reforesting an area, but in our efforts we are finding ways to make the process work.

Through scientific investigation, we have learned that mature temperate forests, on average, are made up of around three hundred mature trees per acre (.4 hectare). This gives us a vague idea about what a forest is, but little direction on how to get there. We could say that if it costs about ten dollars per tree, reforesting an acre would cost about $3,000, but that has two negative effects. For one, most people cannot afford to think about spending three thousand dollars on trees, especially since most land for sale is three thousand dollars per acre or more just to purchase! Another dis-incentive is to think that a forest is merely an amalgamation of trees. Nothing could be further from the truth. Forests are a complex mix of individual trees, moisture, soils, microbes and the web of life that inhabits them. Mature forests may only have a few hundred individual trees living on them, but the soils are made up of countless thousands of dead trees that gave their lives so that others might live.

One may ask, "What are the benefits?" of donating to ECO-Tours of Wisconsin. This is the most amazing part. There are literally thousands of benefits that come from planting a single tree. When the weather is cold, trees act as giant wind reducing solar collectors. Friends who fly during the winter are always amazed that forests appear black from the sky but open fields turn white when the snow flies. When the weather is hot, trees temper the desiccating effects of the sun and wind, humidifying and cooling vast areas. Years ago, I heard the maxim, "We all live downstream". The tree planting that we participate in has transformed entire watersheds. The thousands of trees and millions of tree seeds reduce flooding, wind erosion, sterilization of the soil surface by ultraviolet light, and provide habitat for billions of soil organisms, whose entire life cycle helps to conserve soil, water and provide habitat for generations of life in the future. Donations to support our work are truly a gift that will keep on giving, long after we are gone. It is difficult to put a price, or a value on the feelings that come with improving the quality of the environment, but for those who enjoy the shade of the trees that we have planted, or for the ones who see a bird alight on the branch of a recently planted seedling, there can be no denying, the world has been made a bit better because of our passing this way. In our tiny corner of the planet and in this miniscule part of our universe, there will be the possibility of life, where it had not been possible before.

We may never understand the value of a flood averted or the creation of oxygen that the trees we plant provide. It may forever be incalculable, the priceless rewards that come from allowing nature to flourish. It is amazing that something as simple as planting a tree can have such a profound effect on future generations. Knowing that we are part of a solution to such a wide array of problems has rewards beyond those that can be put into words. Bringing hope to the hopeless, shelter to the exposed and life to the lifeless is pretty heady stuff and through our efforts, your dollars can be put to use in ways that leave the entire planet just a little better than we have received it from previous generations. We will continue to plant native trees and offer to plant trees in even greater numbers with the help of your donations. The tree that falls in the forest may not make a sound if we are not there to "hear" it, but when it goes down, it must sigh a little, knowing that it will feed the next generation of life. Just as the raspberry builds soils that future forests will grow upon, our efforts are meant to build a foundation for future generations to thrive upon. May your days be filled with grace, beauty, blessings and understanding. Namaste'.    A recent story of our activities