Earth Day 2009: Northern Michigan Baha’is help plant 12,000 trees across the Upper Peninsula

For the past five years the Baha'is of Marquette, numbering about 40, have helped with large Earth Day projects organized by EarthKeepers, an interfaith effort to care for the earth through environmental stewardship.

This year, EarthKeepers is distributing 12,000 tree seedlings through more than 100 churches and temples across northern Michigan.

tree

The ten faith traditions participating in Earthkeepers (Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, Baha'i, Jewish, Zen Buddhist, and Quaker) took part in a blessing of the trees ceremony on Earth Day, April 22, next to the Presque Isle pavilion.

The faith groups will pick up 12- to 16-inch white spruce and red pine seedlings at local conservation district offices in the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) on Saturday, May 2 and plant them the next day. They can plant the trees anywhere they decide and give out trees to members and others.

"This is about more than putting trees in the ground--it's an expression by the faith communities of love and care for God's creation,” said Catholic EarthKeeper team member Kyra Fillmore, the project's communications coordinator for faith communities.

The EarthKeeper team includes more than 150 churches and temples; the nonprofit Superior Watershed Partnership (SWP); the nonprofit Cedar Tree Institute (CTI); and the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU) Student Team.

“This tree-planting project was a perfect match for the Baha'i community to get involved,” said Dr. Rodney H. Clarken, chair of the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of Marquette and the director of the Northern Michigan University (NMU) School of Education.

Clarken cited the work of well-known Baha’i conservationist Richard St. Barbe Baker of England, who was nicknamed the "Man of the Trees." A forester and author who inspired millions to protect what he called the earth's "green mantle" of trees, Baker brought "a message of preserving the natural environment especially trees," said Clarken.

Rodney
Dr. Rodney H. Clarken

As a member of the Baha’i Faith, St. Barbe Baker drew extensively on the Faith's teachings about the oneness of humanity and, accordingly, brought a distinctive global-mindedness and unifying spirit to virtually every project he undertook.

President Franklin D Roosevelt credited Baker with first proposing the idea of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which FDR and key aide Henry Morganthau Jr. "expanded to a nationwide effort to put America back to work," said Clarken.

The Baha’i writings stress the importance of conservation and protection of the earth's resources. Baha'u'llah wrote, "Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, Creator. Its manifestations are diversified by varying causes, and in this diversity there are signs for men of discernment. Nature is God's Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world."

“The EarthKeepers promote an interfaith solution to protecting the environment, which fits well with the Baha'i concept of promoting solutions to the world's problems through unity and consultation among diverse peoples,” Clarken said.

This is the fifth year that the U.P. EarthKeepers have organized an Earth Day environment project. From 2005 to 2007, more than 15,000 U.P. residents turned in more than 360 tons of household hazardous waste at a dozen collection sites across the U.P., including electronic waste (e-waste) like computers, monitors and printers plus cell phones, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, herbicides, oil-based paint and vehicle batteries. Most of the items were recycled and the remainder was properly disposed according to federal guidelines. Last year the EarthKeepers provided a household energy conservation checklist that resulted in the reduction of more than 3 million pounds of carbon emissions.