It is common practice for lumber companies to replant harvested stands, but non-profit Archangel Ancient Tree Archive is taking replanting a step further.
The organization has been propagating cuttings taken from the world's oldest trees to preserve their "champion" DNA and replanting them in what the organization calls "living libraries."
David Milarch, the founder of the organization, told Co.Exist, that humans have cut down about 95 percent of the original total of important old species. The goal of this project is to keep the genetic material of thousand-year-old trees in the pool for future generations of the species. The living libraries, planted on university campuses around the world, make it easier for researchers to discover medicinal and other properties of trees that would normally be on the other side of the planet.
As Milarch explained to Co.Exist, logging had a major effect on plant evolution: When the biggest, strongest, least-diseased trees were cut down first, it created an environment where weak trees were the most likely to survive and pass on their genes. By cloning and replanting trees that have survived even the axe for 4,000 years, Milarch hopes to keep those virulent genes alive to build stronger forests.
Last April, New York Times reporter Jim Robbins wrote a book about Archangel's mission called The Man Who Planted Trees: Lost Groves, Champion Trees, and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet. For the book, Robbins followed Milarch for more than 10 years and spoke to 100 researchers about the science of trees.
