(22 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Detroit – 21 March 2025
1. Arboretum Detroit founder Birch Kemp and some employees arrive at the site where a sequoia forest will be planted
2. Arboretum Detroit workers spread mulch around a newly planted tree
3. An employee transports a wheelbarrow filled with fertilizer
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Birch Kemp, Arboretum Detroit:
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“On April 22nd, Earth Day, like every year, we plant trees. People really want to come out and plant trees on Earth Day. This year is going to be special, because it’s going to be the launch of the sequoia forest. So, on this site, there’s going to be two-, three-dozen sequoias mixed with native understory trees planted. This is just two vacant lots where there used to be a house. And now, we tilled it up and got rid of the rubble. We’re pulling garbage out of the soil. And we’re going to get it ready to plant a meadow and the trees.”
5. A worker spreads mulch
6. Employees remove rocks from the soil and place them in a wheelbarrow
7. A worker uses a shovel while planting a tree
8. Various of abandoned properties nearby
9. Kemp and the crew walk down a city street toward the lot where the sequoia forest will be planted
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Birch Kemp, Arboretum Detroit:
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“There’s only about 10 to 15% of the houses left, so that leaves a lot of vacant lots. And we thought, ‘Why don’t we fill them up with trees?’ Because right now they’re just invasive grasses and weeds that need to be mowed. … We’re trying to breathe clean air. We’re trying to create shade. We’re trying to soak up the stormwater. And I think sequoias are, among all the trees we plant, maybe the strongest, best candidates for that.”
11. An employee dumps some mulch at the foot of a sequoia
12. A post that reads (English) “Giant Sequoia” stands next to one of the trees
13. The top of a sequoia
14. Various of workers shoveling fertilizer into a wheelbarrow
15. An employee digs a hole where a tree eventually will go
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Birch Kemp, Arboretum Detroit:
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“If I’m going to dig a hole and plant a tree and I can plant a tree that’s going to live 50 years, or I can plant a tree that’s going to live a thousand years, my time is better spent planting a tree that’s going to live a thousand years.”
17. An Arboretum Detroit signs welcomes visitors to (English) “Treetroit”
18. Various of the crew walking through a wooded area
19. A worker dumps out a wheelbarrow-full of mulch
20. SOUNDBITE (English) Birch Kemp, Arboretum Detroit:
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“Detroit is unique in that we have the space to be able to do that, right? There’s not another urban area I know of that has the kind of potential that we do to reforest. … We just have the space to do it. We should take advantage of it. If we don’t, we really missed our opportunity. We should be an example for the rest of the world. We’re retrofitting our city to be the ideal place to live.”
21. Kemp and the others pick up rocks at the future home of the sequoia forest
STORYLINE:
Arborists are turning vacant land in Detroit into forests. Not of elms, oaks and red maples indigenous to the city, but giant sequoias, the world’s largest trees that can live for thousands of years.
The project will not only replace long-standing blight with majestic trees, but could also improve air quality and help to preserve sequoias that are native to California’s Sierra Nevada, where they are threatened by ever-hotter wildfires.
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