Be a tree tender

Join Min’s Tree Tender Challenge

MINISMS are Min’s inspirations and stories to help you become a good tree tender.

Min says…why don’t you treat this as a project and use a diary or journal to record how many trees you have grown or protected? Diaries are normally collections of private thoughts and observations. Although, sharing what you’re done to grow, nurture and protect trees and their ecosystems will inspire others.

If you’d like to share your projects, ideas, drawings, photographs, or achievements with Min, please ask your parent, guardian or teacher to click the join button below.

DIG

Be curious. Start researching.

MINISM#1 Curiosity is the compost that grows knowledge

Why are trees important? Why do they help us survive?
How many trees does the planet need now because of deforestation?
What other organisations like this one use innovation and technology to successfully plant and grow trees? Find out how many of the trees lived, not just how many were planted.

MINISM#2 Great forests start with great homework

What countries have had success in planting trees in large numbers. Find out why it worked, and share it widely.
What charities can you find whose purpose is to look after trees? Make a list and share it.
Where are the First Nation People’s sacred trees in your area?

MINISM#3 Step softly; this is someone’s sacred shade

Who chops down trees, and why? Understand first; capture your thoughts, then stand up if you disagree.
Wood is a valuable, renewable resource. Which forests should be harvested and which should be preserved? Write about your findings.
If an old growth forest is in peril, who is doing what to protect it? Could you join them?

MINISM#4 Saving starts with seeing

Many individuals around the world have planted thousands of trees and changed a barren landscape into a thriving ecosystem. See if you can find out who are they are, how they have done it, then share their stories.

MINISM#5 If we can green a desert, you can green a street

WRITE

Use your words

MINISM#6 Ideas plant seeds. Seeds are tomorrow’s forests. Forests are the next generations’ lungs.

Writing about what you learn from your research—and sharing it—is a potent way to persuade others of the importance of trees.
Write letters. Send letters about what you’ve learned to people of influence in local councils, territory, state, and federal governments. And write to organisations involved in forestry and land rehabilitation. (Keep a record of your letters.)

MINISM#7 A good letter can be a lever

A letter may not lead to immediate change, but it can be noticed—especially if you follow up. Following up is a secret superpower!
Even more impactful is encouraging others to join you to write letters together. One letter may be of little impact, a lot of letters can make a change.

MINISM#8 Stories can make people ‘feel’ a forest.

Write a story about your own special tree, a forest in danger, or a new ecosystem.
Self-publish a small book. Take photographs and use Canva to design it. Sell it to raise funds to plant trees.
Create a writing circle to support each other with your stories and letters.

MINISM#9 A writing circle can be a greenhouse for courage and action.

Please share your stories with Min—we’d love to publish some on the website.

CREATE

Busy hands. Open heart.

MINISM#10 Creating is play. Play grows brave ideas.

Honour trees with your hands

Hold a creative thank-tank with family and friends to come up with innovative ideas to tend to trees. Use Min’s think-tank rules from Min Barklin and the Silver Radiants, CHAPTER 31.
Paint trees. Photograph trees. Draw trees. Make a clay sculpture of a tree. Use air-drying clay and paint it. Photograph it. Use you artwork to inspire others.
Then invite your friends and family to create art of trees, beings, lumins, plants, ecosystems or creatures. Collect the works for a local exhibition—perhaps at your community hall. Charge a small entry fee and donate it to a tree-care charity.
Illustrate one of the glins or lumins from the book. Send it to Min, and we’ll choose some to appear in the back of Min’s next book.

MINISM#11 Art frames wonder so others see it

GET DIRTY

Make soil. Plant a tree

MINISM#12 You don’t just plant a tree. You make shade, and a home for birds, and bugs, and breezes.

Have you ever planted a tree? If not what tree would you most like to plant?
Choose a tree that has chosen your climate.
If you can’t plant a tree, adopt one. Nurture it and care for it.

MINISM#13 Tend a tree. Tend the future.

Meals for trees. Start your own soil bank. Collect autumn leaves and grass clippings. Bury your green waste. Put them altogether in a pile and water it. Keep adding. Soon, you’ll see it come alive—dark, friable, healthy soil to add to the base of your planted or adopted tree. (Wear gloves and always wash you hands after working with soil.)
Make friends with the slimies. They are a garden’s best friend. Your tree will thank you.

MINISM#14 Every worm—a tiny farmer.

Clean a creek. Get down and dirty and help the ecosystem back to health. Find out from your council or local conservation group where and when the next clean up takes place.
Build your own ecosystem. Create a small garden in a pot in your garden or on your balcony, or make a small pond. Tend to it, watch as it grows how many creatures start to visit it, from birds, to bugs to worms and bees.
Take photos, take notes. You’ll be amazed at how the ecosystems change in small areas like a pot garden or around a tree as it grows.

MINISM#15 Like the growth rings on a tree, use your diary to measure the magic.

Research what native plants bees love and plant lots of them
See how you can help support bees to further benefit trees .

MINISM #16 Bees and trees make the food we eat and the oxygen we breathe. Trees and bees represent a truly harmonious symbiosis

Lobby

Speak for trees

Write a letter to your council to ask for more trees, especially in your streets. Did you know that appropriate well-tended street trees can reduce the surface temperature of the roads by 10-15C degrees?
If your area needs more trees, or a forest is threatened, then start a petition. A petition is many voices on one or many pages.

MINISM#17 People hear clearer when kids speak together

What does your local council do about trees? Are they good or ho-hum. If they’re great, cheer. If they’re ho-hum, nudge.
Write to the your environment minister explaining what you’ve learned about the importance of trees.
Ask them to tell you what their policies are for tree-planting and protection
From your research, share with them the stories of successful tree plantings around the world.

Spread the word

Use your diary notes, research, activities, writing, creativity and lobbying, to tell stories and spread the word about trees and their ecosystems. When we hear a story, especially if it contains hope, we are much more likely to act. Stories are powerful.

MINISM#18 We are wired to learn from stories

ACT

Don’t do nothing.

MINISM#19 If we have no hope, we cannot act

Go through these ideas and any others that you and your family have come up with. Choose the ones you believe you could best achieve. Then act.

MINISM#20 We need tree-tenders. We need trees. We need you

JOIN MIN’S CREW

Build a tree tenders community

MINISM#21 Care today. Canopy tomorrow.

Min will keep sending you MINISMS and stories about those who are succeeding in planting, nurturing and protecting trees and their ecosystems.

MINISM#22 Together we achieve so much more than alone