Volunteers Needed to Plant Trees in Door County

Final Reforestation Effort Will Push Total Number of Trees Planted Over 100,000

STURGEON BAY, Wis. — April 17, 2008 — The Nature Conservancy is seeking volunteers to help plant 19,000 trees on approximately 38 acres in Door County this spring. The tree-planting work is scheduled April 24 through May 2 and will complete a five-year reforestation project.

Volunteers are needed on Saturday, April 26 to hand plant 500 native trees at the Conservancy’s North Bay / Mud Lake Preserve. Participants will meet at 9 a.m. in the Baileys Harbor Town Hall parking lot. Volunteers should wear work clothes and bring gloves, shovels and water. Tree-planting is expected to continue until noon, however, participants do not need to stay for the duration.

“People really seem to enjoy these tree-planting events,” said Mike Grimm. “It’s a time for friends, neighbors and families to come together and help return our lands and waters to a more natural condition.”

This is the final year of a 5-year tree-planting project on Door Peninsula funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service through settlement money from the Fox River Natural Resource Damage Assessment. One hundred and fifteen thousand native trees will have been planted on 192 acres when the project is completed.

“In addition to providing good wildlife habitat, reforesting these old fields will help return the area to a more natural condition because a forested landscape will store water and slowly release it into the watershed,” Grimm said.

The Nature Conservancy has been working with local communities on the Door Peninsula to protect wild places and wildlife since 1962 and has helped conserve more than 5,200 acres. The Conservancy owns and manages 3,674 acres on the peninsula.

Volunteers are also needed on Thursday, April 24 to help sort the thousands of white pine, white spruce, white cedar, oak, ash and birch trees that will be planted at not just the Conservancy’s Mink River Preserve but also its Shivering Sands Preserve.

Most of these trees will be machine planted on weekdays from April 25 to May 2; however, volunteers are needed to assist in these efforts and with a limited number of additional hand-plantings.

For more information, please call the Conservancy’s Door Peninsula office in Sturgeon Bay at (920) 743-8695.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. In Wisconsin, the Conservancy has helped conserve more than 140,000 acres since 1960. The Conservancy has more than 21,000 members in Wisconsin and offices in Madison, Baraboo, East Troy, Minocqua and Sturgeon Bay. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at nature.org/wisconsin.