The work starts with creation of a small forest nursery in a
school backyard. Such a nursery is capable of growing up to 1,000
seedlings annually. The nursery is divided into two parts: one is
seeds section for planting seeds of trees, the other is the school
forest nursery proper and here is where the seedling are grown
until they are 40 to 60 cm high. The best time to plant seeds and
seedlings is spring - late April when the ground is already soft
enough and trees have not started growing yet. This is when we come
visit a school. We tell the kids about existing environmental
issues and ways to address them and make a slide show for them.
After this we go to the backyard and start digging. Usually a
nursery covers a 10x10 meter plot that can actually be smaller if
there is not enough space in the backyard. Then we make beds for
seeds. These beds should be straight and accurate so that water
will not wash the seeds away. The seeds are planted in rows: not
too deep for coniferous trees (1cm for pine, 0.5cm for larch) and a
little deeper for broadleaf species like maple - 3 to 4 cm or oak -
5 to 8 cm. The beds are made flat and watered thoroughly from a
watering pot with a sieve (so that we don't wash the layer of earth
off the seeds). If the climate is usually dry, it would be good to
cover the planted seeds with polyethylene film for a while. This
will keep the seedbeds dump and save the seeds and beds from
chicks.
Right after we go to the nursery section. Kids work in the
nursery for the very first time, so to make the work more
interesting we bring two-year old pine seedlings. They are 10 to 20
cm high and it is yet too early to plant them permanently and the
kids will have to grow them in the nursery for a year or two (until
they are 40 to 60 cm). We plant them in the nursery at about 8-15cm
from one another. This is quite enough for the seedlings to grow
there a couple of years. After this time they will be planted
somewhere permanently. The seedling beds are quite short and it is
quite easy to look after them.
Summer
Summer means the most difficult and important part of work for
us. The most important thing the seeds and seedlings want is
watering and weeding. In two-three weeks first seedlings emerge
from the ground. As they are still to small and vulnerable we have
to get rid of weeds that grow much faster than the seedlings.
Already in a month the seedlings give quite big shoots that grow
from the top bud - that's how much trees grow each year. Droughts
are not infrequent in summer, we have to water the nursery quite
regularly. The more warmth and care we give
to the seedlings at the nursery, the better they will survive in
the future. Given lots of care, the seedlings will grow high and
strong enough and won't require any more nursing after they are
planted permanently.
As a rule, rural schools have schedules of work at the school's
backyard where they usually grow vegetables. The same backyard can
be used as a forest nursery so that the kids can take care of the
nursery all through the summer. By late summer the two-year old
pine seedlings that we planted in the spring, turn into furry
three-year olds (trees grow only in summer). Some of them are big
and strong enough to be planted out permanently.
Autumn
Now that the small trees stopped growing, it is time for
replanting.
The seeds section of the nursery already has the first
generation of one-year old pines and oaks. Depending on the growing
conditions, the small pines have grown 5 to 10 cm high and if they
are high enough and grow too dense, it is necessary to replant them
to the nursery. We should be very careful doing this not to hurt
the very small but extremely delicate roots. If the shoots are
small or grow not too dense we can leave them in their place and
let them grow a year longer to replant them next fall. As soon as
we are through with the one-year olds, it is time to give all our
attention to the three-year old seedlings. As the growth of trees
depends on many different factors, the trees develop differently.
After three years of growth the seedlings may be three times higher
one another that is why it is necessary to sort them. The biggest
of them are strong enough to be replanted permanently, the weaker
ones should be left in the nursery for a year.
This fall together with the kids who were patiently looking
after their school nurseries we decided to replant the first
three-year olds to permanent places. For this we organized one-day
field camps involving both school kids and teachers. The main goal
of these camps was to teach the kids and their teachers to plant
young trees to permanent places so that they can plant trees in
their area themselves. The site to plant trees was chosen
beforehand; basically we focused on gullies, banks and shores of
water bodies and wastelands. The main idea is to use lands that
nobody needs or uses as arable lands or pastures. Otherwise the
young trees might be cut and destroyed.
So how the field camp worked? We meet at a school closest to the
site of the camp: each school sends some 10 kids and a teacher.
After everybody has arrived we can leave for the camp. To begin
with, we tell the people what forests used to grow here a few
centuries ago, how they were gradually destroyed by humans (for
firewood, industrial needs, arable lands) and what we can do today
to restore local forest cover. How forest saves rivers and brooks
from drying out and pollution, how the woods protect fields from
being dried out by winds and how the woods stop the growth of
gullies destroying everything on their way. After a few lectures,
the kids make up teams or brigades, take a basket with seedlings,
spades, containers with water and spread along the edge of a gully.
It is very difficult to dig the earth as after the dry summer the
ground became solid as rock. Once we planted trees under pouring
rain - this was the first autumn rain but the ground was so dry
that the showers could not soak through deep enough. That is why
under this pouring rain we had to water the newly planted trees.
Most of the camps were quite sunny though. We brought two-year old
pines as it was quite obvious that we did not have enough big
seedlings for all camp participants. Two-year olds are rather small
to be planted permanently and it will be rather tough for them to
survive, but we tried to choose for them places where the grass was
quite short and could not impede the growth of the trees. Most of
the saplings will survive and one day turn into tall and beautiful
trees. It was very good that some of the three-year old seedling
came from school nurseries as they are strong enough to survive
with almost no additional care. The kids worked together hard and
in a while a yet hardly noticeable line of trees appeared along the
gully. The lunch was ready by that time to give strength to the
children after a day of hard work. Everybody ate their lunch
heartily obviously feeling that together they had done a great and
important job. After lunch the kids gave out small performances on
forest or environmental topics that each school had prepared at
home. They gave us quite a few surprises: they read verses, sang
songs and even parodied Greenpeace. They told about the importance
of forests, showed sketches from the life of forest inhabitants,
some of the kids even brought self-made costumes. We felt very
pleased to know that forests had found such a warm response from
the kids.
We thanked the children and especially their teachers very
warmly for their hard and selfless work at the nurseries and in the
camps as they were volunteers and everything was based on the
initiative of the kids and teachers. All the camp participants
received gifts from Greenpeace and each school got a "Restore Our
Forests" banner. We produced these banners after the spring work
with schools and they depict the main stages of growing trees.
Winter
During the camps we announced a contest for the best banner on
"I want a forest to grow here because?". The youngest
schoolchildren received a simpler task: they will participate in
the best "My Future Forest" drawing contest. Even on the New Year
eve we were still receiving kids' drawings. Again the children did
a great job telling through their banners and drawings why forests
are so important for them and for all of us.