Tree-Planting Partnership a Leap of Faith
On a rainy Saturday in mid-September, the Sierra Club, Trout Unlimited, and the Vineyard Boise Christian Fellowship gathered to plant trees along Mores Creek, just north of Boise, Idaho. "After a summer of record-breaking heat, the rain was welcomed, and it helped to nurture 300 newly planted cottonwoods," says Sierra Club environmental partnerships organizer Christina Yagjian, above left, who helped lead the habitat restoration event. Volunteers dug into the floodplain, below, with hope that in a few years the new cottonwood forest will yield nutrients and shade and nourish the stream bed, providing new habitat for fish and wildlife, and, in Yagjian's words, "new memories for Idaho families."
A century ago, Mores Creek was heavily mined and polluted, and logs were floated down it and the Boise River. Now, as the local population grows and recreation replaces resource extraction as the main source of of income from western public lands, wild and scenic beauty and wildlife habitat are ever-more-valuable commodities. The September tree planting occurred in conjunction with the Vineyard Church's "creation care" conference attended by pastors and leaders from across the country, reflecting a national trend in the faith community toward environmental engagement. Numerous Sierra Club volunteers participated in both the conference and the tree-planting.
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