Enter the Big Tree Month Photo Contest – January 2024
Category: forestry, Growing Community with Nature, LandPaths Preserves, slow restoration, Stewardship, Volunteer
By LandPaths Staff
January 2, 2024
It’s time for the Big Tree Month Photo Contest!
Large and big old-growth trees in Sonoma County captivate LandPaths participants with their immense size and complex network of branches and leaves. They remind us of the power of nature. These large trees are important food sources, limit erosion, contribute soil nutrients, provide habitat, have a strong cultural importance, and create the next generation of trees. And they tend to be resilient in the face of wildfire.
Join us on a volunteer stewardship day this January to protect the health and ecoystems of these magnificent old-growth trees, take a photo of a magnificent Big Tree during the stewardship day, and then enter it into our photo contest to win a prize.
Rules and details below! of these old trees by taking a photo on any of our volunteer stewardship days this January and entering it into our photo contest! *
Photo of a big tree at Bohemia Ecological Preserve by Cam Hurd
Our staff will vote on their favorite Big Tree photos in early February and the top three will receive a LandPaths t-shirt!
* Note that your photos may be shared on Landpaths’ social media and website.
Rules
- Your photo must be taken during a volunteer stewardship day wth LandPaths in January.
- Sign up to participate in a volunteer stewardship day at one of our preserves in January. We have quite a few coming up as you can see in our Calendar! Then take a photo any time during the volunteer stewardship day. Click here to go to the Calendar.
- Email [email protected] with your photo, date, your name, preserve, and a 1-sentence description of why you feel this tree is important, great, amazing, awe-inspiring, peace-bringing, or majestic OR share a post on social media, tag LandPaths, and add #bigtreephotocontest2024 in the caption. To limit over-visitation to these trees, please DO NOT share the GPS coordinate of your tree.
- Participants may submit only one photo per volunteer day.
- All native trees are eligible. Some suggested species are oaks, madrones, bay laurels, redwoods, buckeyes, willows, maples.
- Final submissions are due by January 31st . LandPaths staff will vote on the winners.
- Volunteers that submit photos acknowledge that their photos may be shared on social media or the LandPaths website.
Example
Benjamin Bravo – Riddell – 12/14/23 – Madrone – This madrone has beauty, complexity and stands approximately 40 feet tall. This madrone has also experienced some hardship, as can be seen by its numerous missing branches, cracks, and burls. This madrone is a symbol of perseverance.
Alice Walker
" In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. "
