David Milarch with the National Champion Green Ash Elk Rapids, Michigan
height: 95 feet — girth: 21.5 feet crown spread: 95 feet

Elemental Earth Medicine
Forests of Champions
Tree Farmer Sees New Hope in Old Giants

David Milarch

a conversation with David Milarch
© by David Yarrow, January 1997

Christmas Eve, 1996, I called David Milarch. Three days before, he had hurt his back shoveling snow. His wife and two sons left on their family holiday trip, leaving him—like me—home alone for the holiday, flat on his back in bed, disabled and in pain. I quickly found we share much more than loneliness and bodily pain.

Part One
Whither the Trees?
As we face the new century's challenge of global warming and climate change, trees are among humanity's best allies. But the struggle for survival has taken a great toll.

Part Two
The New Green Way
David Milarch describes the fundamental purposes and activities of The Champion Tree Project: to protect, preserve and propagate the Big Trees.

Part Three
Raising Money by Planting Trees
A professional nurseryman explains how the sale of trademarked Champion trees can raise enough money to fund tree research, reforestation and youth education in environmental stewardship.

Part Four
Food for Champions
David Milarch explains how to improve topsoil and make the earth fertile enough to grow Champion genes into new forests of Big Trees.

Part Five
Live Local, Go Global
To preserve our Champion trees and plant new forests is our best legacy to leave our own future generations. In the new millennium, tree planting and forest restoration must happen worldwide.

David Yarrow—writer, journalist, teacher, healer, dowser, and Earth advocate from upstate New York's Finger Lakes, and a founder of the Northeast Organic Farming Assoc. of New York—tested and taught soil remineralization for a decade. In 1992, he began to teach Indigenous Permaculture, but was electrocuted and shattered his spine while in Wisconsin researching an article on the hazards of powerlines. This article—David's first new writing since his catastrophic injuries—was typed by the three fingers of his good hand. Its message of hope and plan of action—like David's survival and recovery—is a gift of God's angels.

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The Champion Tree Project International — www.championtrees.org — updated: 6/21/2001