One Man’s Mission to Revive the Last Redwood Forests | Short Film Showcase

while people have asked me you know what's it like for you David when you you know what's it like when you walk through one of these groves of old-growth redwoods by far hands down the most spiritual profound conscious altering in a positive way experience for me is every single time I walk through a redwood forest I can't say that I understand all of it I've been given some insights that help the average person understand wines are critically important it's the most marvelous experience I can get it nowhere else on this planet that I found I also feel tremendous sorrow tremendous sorrow that 95% of them were killed and we didn't even know what they do to anchor our ability as human beings to be able to live on this plan we killed him that's the badness it's my job when I walk through there to yell out to those trees to hold those trees and say I'm here to do everything in my power on earth to bring all the human beings and all the help that I can to put this back to put back every single tree that was cut down and killed that's what it's like for me and you know what I'm going to do it the redwood trees of California are probably the oldest of living things the redwoods that grow along the coast lived to be 2000 years old so down they come some of the world's oldest biggest and tallest trees trees that grow over 350 feet high their history goes back millions of years to the time of the dinosaurs but when we look at stacks of redwood lumber we may well be reminded of its ancient history for this is lumber from a species of tree that has survived for millions of years trees that live to be two and four thousand years old the tallest biggest oldest trees in the world we can rebuild old-growth forests utilizing the genetics the largest oldest strongest proven through the test of time giants that will help us turn this scourge that we face this threat climate change around the red ones aren't nothing more than a model here we have one of the very top fastest-growing species of trees ten foot a year and something that's growing very very quickly phytoremediation sir means pull out of the air tremendous amounts of excess co2 just an average coast redwood is a thousand tons a thousand tons that's a lot of carbon as we're losing the vast majority of our old-growth trees on this planet the genes of those old-growth trees need to be preserved like Noah's Ark and utilizing them to reforest the planet when we really need it so we set off on that quest and we did it we did find the 20 largest living coast redwoods in this 100 mile corridor from just over Oregon down here we kept running into these stumps over and over and over again these trees are dead and gone there's nothing you can do it's a tragedy but gosh we just have to learn to live with it until we learn about these right here beetle sprouts okay this tree is not dead it's a long ways from dead in fact it's almost impossible a killer redwood you can burn them like they have here if they burnt this out trying to get rid of it you cut them down burn them 140 years ago throw everything in the world and you can't kill it but nobody recognized that the tree lives on because when you threaten its life from its roots it throws off things folk basil sprouts so the exact genetic fingerprint of this stump and any other stump in this whole region is in the basil sprouts I have a real affinity for these stumps because I went for the hospital and died of renal failure legally died of renal failure but a number of minutes later like these stumps that were giving up for dead like I was given up for dead surprise surprise they came back to life so we went and found the biggest stump right here we found groves of redwoods that are 30 foot plus in diameter it's incredible 30 foot across that's the width of most people's ranch type house so Jake goes hey Dad would it be cool if we can bring this back to life so we took some cuttings off of this we snip some cuts Jake did and we flew them back overnight back to kovash Michigan and tried to micro propagate these things ensures the world ouvert our micro propagation in tissue culture lab the main goals for that was basically research and development on how to make a million trees to send everywhere what this is is taking very small pieces off of very small cuttings and then exponentially multiplying them through jars and reproduction hormones so you could imagine if we use the multiplication hormones you're going to grow many types out of one top then you take those pieces then divide those so then it becomes exponential so imagine large warehouses with this tissue culture going on I mean we could grow millions and millions and millions of trees the Mellark family's been in the tree business for over four generations so we've been in this for a long time we're not going anywhere this is just kind of taken it into the next millennia almost making a hip again and starting from the very beginning we used to purchase some trees and we used to go collect some native trees but now we're literally making trees in the United States 98% of our old-growth forests have been cut down in California where these growth the only range in the world of these 96% of all coast redwoods have been cut down there's only 4% left maybe the genetics of this ancient giant tree might be valuable maybe we should keep a few she has most people know California is going through a thousand-year drought to protect and safeguard these genetics we've picked the most ideal place with fog cool temperatures an abundance of rain in Southern Oregon to make sure these trees and their genetics don't get lost here in Southern Oregon through a program called assisted migration we're moving these trees north where it is slightly cooler the fog still remains in effect every day which these trees have gotten used to for millions of years and through assisted migration we're moving them to a climate that's more conducive to the one that they've that they've thrived in for for millennia here's one of our tags you know what this tree is the Barrett stump that we filmed yesterday with the playground built on it this tree right here is the world's first column with 3,000 year old redwood and it is that tree now this will join several hundred others as a model to the world that yes we can fix the destruction we can go back and we can re-establish and rebuild the old-growth force that we've lost kids just love this project when they're playing the little clone redwoods and big trees they just have so much fun they know they can be a part of something bigger planting nurturing things instead of destruction and it's the reason that I pretty much started this thing I thought you know the kids could really show people that this is fun this is easy if we build a model and show the world what's possible and if we change our thinking to help Mother Nature to work with Mother Nature not completely destroy Mother Nature I think our great-grandchildren and Beyond will be grateful that we did it's my life's work let's plan some more you you of my this to the ground they read be on mom catch on for the song bear we come I'm sorry ding and the bone second chances we'd all be you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 2,125,096

Keywords: Short film showcase, national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, Showcase, short films, filmmakers, wildlife films, films, National Geographic, redwoods, forests, trees, deforestation, restore, conservation, David Milarch, hope, inspiring, video, youtube, short film showcase

Id: wW9w6eCQQkU

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Sat May 28 2016