Introduction

The mission of the Champion Tree Project is to be the leader of urban and community environmental sustainability by protecting, propagating and planting a living legacy of our champion trees.

Trees have the proven ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, air pollution, storm water runoff, energy costs, crime and medical bills, while improving property values and wildlife habitat. Our quality of life and, yes, our very survival depends on the continued health of our urban forest so it is no wonder that experts agree that urban forests will be an essential component of our future urban ecosystems. But given the high mortality rate of trees in urban areas how do we lengthen their life span in order to make our urban forests sustainable?

Sustainable urban forests are defined as - "Naturally occurring and planted trees in cities which are managed to provide the inhabitants with a continuing level of economic, social, environmental and ecological benefits today and into the future." In order to achieve the maximum level of benefits in order to insure our continued quality of life, sustainable urban forests must have three components:

· Healthy Tree Resource;
· Community-wide Support
· Comprehensive Management;

While all three components are necessary, the tree resource is the engine that drives urban forests. The urban forest, as a whole, is only as healthy as the quality of the individual trees that grow there. Trees like to grow in the natural forest. They don't like to grow, and often won't survive in the city. In the forest, they have fresh air, rich soil, and ample moisture. In the city, they have just the opposite. In the forest, each tree is surrounded by other trees; in the city, each tree is surrounded by concrete.

Here in the United States, as with the rest of the developing world, the vast majority of the original forest is already gone. Even with aggressive land acquisition and resource conservation programs, our country has less than 3% of original old growth or undisturbed forest left. Unfortunately, many nursery-grown replacement trees that are planted in the man-made urban landscape die or perform poorly because of the stresses encountered. In order to achieve environmental sustainability, we need trees that are more tolerant of the stresses of urban environments such as soil compaction, cold winters, hot summers, drought, air pollution, salt and insect and disease infestations. Trees that can withstand these common stresses will not only survive and perform better, but will result in lower maintenance and replanting costs.

Fortunately there is tremendous genetic potential for developing superior landscape trees. Many universities, botanical gardens, arboretums, research institutions, and private tree nurseries across the country have long strived to improve tree quality by cloning individual trees which exhibited superior speed of growth, growth form, color, bark pattern and fruit. Unfortunately, few trees currently grown and sold as clones in the nursery trade have been purposely developed and thoroughly tested for disease and pest resistance, environmental tolerance and adaptability. And relatively few of our native trees have been cloned for landscape use.

One of the newest, and certainly the most ambitious, of the efforts to improve tree quality through genetic cloning is the Champion Tree Project, a non-profit organization, founded by Michigan tree farmers David and Jared Milarch in 1996, with goals to protect, propagate and plant all the state and national champion trees. A champion tree is defined as the largest tree of its species as determined by combining measurements of trunk circumference, height and crown spread. The Champion Tree Project works in partnership with private and public tree owners and large scale nurseries to produce and market champion tree clones, called ChampTrees™. In 2000, the Project partnered with the Washington D.C. based National Tree Trust and is now promoting private and corporate tree sponsorships to underwrite the start-up costs associated with launching the largest commercial introduction of new trees in history.

"Living Libraries" of ChampTrees™ are being established around the US in high-profile locations such as Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, Mount Vernon, Dow Botanical Garden, the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon in order to provide secure genetic archives for future scientific study, public appreciation and youth education. Some examples of future uses of ChampTrees™ are cities planning for "Streets of Champions", corporate headquarters designing "Champion Groves" and golf courses building "Champion Signature Holes".

Can champion tree genetics guarantee a superior tree for the urban forest? Only time will tell because this has never been done before, however, champion trees do possess a very desirable characteristic - the ability to withstand environmental stress over a long period of time in order to reach very large size. This relatively long "endurance test" period is proof of genetic potential and may permit more accurate projections about champion tree clone performance than other new clone candidates, chosen for purely aesthetic reasons, which will need decades to reach maturity. But one thing is certain - if we don't save the genetics of these champion trees now…..the trees will die and we will never know.

The urban environment is really a series of heterogeneous microclimates. In the future, the success of urban forests will be assured through identification and use of tree clones with superior genetic characteristics putting them in a better position to cope with the unique environments in which we place them.