Russ George
 click to read more Me with hodad in and hand treebags replanting and restoring a forest on a British Columbia “clear-cut slash burned” spring 1973. |
Those trees I am seen planting have thrived and today are nearly 100 feet tall, like those in this photo! On a good day those many decades ago I would plant 1000 trees. I spent 40+ days restoring that ravaged forest, that’s a lot of trees that have today grown into a majestic and wonderful forest. |
Me with tiny Storm Petrel getting warm and dry in my pocket, restoring her Haida ocean pasture summer 2012 53 N 141 W
40+ years doing the hands on work to restore trees and seas.
As I write this I am living in my sons (and new grandchild’s) home here in Vancouver. Being a grandfather, or as my native friends say a Chini, brings to mind some realities that have been long in the making. To receive the blessings of this world one must give back to it. So from your house little Sandra, I am working to give back to your new world. (Oh yeah there are two additional grandchildren inspiring me, Asa and Cedric.)
That’s a tiny Storm Petrel in my pocket, I found her on our ship early one morning, soaking wet and nearly dead from hypothermia. Likely she collided with some of the ships rigging in the night. My fuzzy shirt pocket was warm and dry and over the course of a few hours she came back to life. She flew happily from my hand to join her flock which were feeding on the tremendous numbers of copepods, zooplankton, grazing the miraculous restored plankton bloom in our thriving Haida Eddy.
Our Haida ocean pasture restoration project has become controversial with many attacks on all involved especially me. Here’s what my Haida colleagues have stated publicly on the record about me. To jump to the heartfelt testimonial about me go to time index 1:26 in the video or click this link to go straight there… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQLqduhP1M8#t=96
I’ve not accomplished my work for Nature alone. It has always been and is a privilege carried on in the company of close friends, all with an uncommon passion for living things. Some small number of us have a willingness in this labour of love to do more than talk and argue, do more than screw in another energy efficient light bulb, do more than donate money, do more than see and experience Nature in her grandest glory, rather we have and continue to spend our lives and sweat working to help Nature going to her where she is most damaged and most in need.
The Canadian treeplanting company I founded in 1972 is still planting trees, a hundred million or more and counting. By the way, those trees being planted by me in that photo at the top of this page are now likely about 40 meters tall, nearly 130 feet. They will be growing for a long time to come, when they are “grandfathers” of my age in “tree years” they may be 600 years old and 80 meters or 200 feet tall and 5 meters 16 feet in diameter. The have been and will for centuries to come providing a home for all manner of forest life
Today in the NE Pacific hundreds of millions of marine animals are thriving on the replenished ocean pasture we helped Nature restore in the summer of 2012. This is mostly what I do, in my spare time I keep my hand in some other fields of science.
Join me, do it for your children and grandchildren, there is still time to fill the need, their need, our need, everthings need… restore the natural world… stop talking start walking.