David Milarch

A Nurseryman's Awakening

David Milarch grew up on his family's shade tree nursery in Copemish, a small town in northwestern Michigan. He spent decades working the land, growing and selling trees in the tradition his family had practiced for generations. By his own account, he was not an environmentalist or a scientist — he was a practical, working-class tree farmer. But in 1991, a near-death experience during a severe illness transformed his sense of purpose. Milarch emerged from that crisis with an urgent conviction that the world's largest and oldest trees were disappearing, and that their irreplaceable genetic material needed to be preserved before it was lost forever.

He began to research what was known about champion trees — the largest living specimens of each species, as recorded by organizations like American Forests. What he found alarmed him. Many of these ancient giants, some over a thousand years old, were dying from disease, pollution, development, and climate stress. Coast redwoods that had stood for two millennia were succumbing to drought. Ancient American elms that had survived centuries were falling to Dutch elm disease. White oaks that predated European settlement were being cleared for suburban development. In most cases, when these trees died, their unique genetic heritage — the specific combination of traits that had allowed them to grow larger and live longer than any others of their kind — died with them.

Milarch decided to do something that no one else was attempting at scale: clone these champion trees before they were gone. Working from his Michigan nursery, he began developing propagation techniques for species that the horticultural industry had long considered impossible or impractical to clone. He took cuttings from the highest branches of ancient trees, grafted them onto rootstock, and experimented tirelessly until he found methods that worked. In 1994, he and his sons co-founded what would become the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the genetics of the world's most exceptional trees.

Cloning the Giants

The technical challenges Milarch faced were formidable. Cloning an ancient tree is fundamentally different from propagating a young nursery specimen. The tissue of old trees has undergone decades or centuries of genetic changes, and cuttings from mature specimens often refuse to root or grow with the vigor of juvenile material. Milarch and his team had to develop specialized techniques for each species, adjusting hormone treatments, growing media, light conditions, and timing to coax ancient tissue back to life. The failure rate was high, especially in the early years, but persistence yielded breakthroughs.

Among their most celebrated achievements was the successful cloning of coast redwoods and giant sequoias — the tallest and most massive tree species on Earth. Archangel Ancient Tree Archive collected genetic material from some of the most famous individual trees in California, including stumps of redwoods that had been felled over a century ago but whose root systems still held viable genetic material. The organization successfully propagated these specimens and began planting the clones in suitable habitats, effectively giving these ancient genetic lineages a second life in new locations. They also cloned champion specimens of other iconic North American species, including American elms, white oaks, and eastern hemlocks.

The scientific rationale behind the project rests on a simple but powerful premise: trees that have survived for centuries or grown to extraordinary size carry genetic traits — disease resistance, drought tolerance, structural resilience — that are exceptionally valuable in an era of rapid environmental change. By cloning these individuals and planting them widely, Archangel aims to reintroduce superior genetics into landscapes where they can contribute to forest health and carbon sequestration. A single coast redwood can sequester hundreds of tons of carbon over its lifetime, and Milarch argues that planting groves of genetically superior specimens represents one of the most cost-effective strategies available for drawing carbon out of the atmosphere.

The Man Who Planted Trees

Milarch's story reached a wide audience through Jim Robbins's 2012 book "The Man Who Planted Trees," which chronicled his journey from a struggling Michigan nurseryman to the leader of a global tree-cloning effort. The book brought attention not only to Milarch's work but to the broader crisis facing ancient trees worldwide. It highlighted the paradox that while society lavishes attention on endangered animal species, the largest and oldest organisms on the planet — ancient trees — receive comparatively little protection or scientific study.

Archangel Ancient Tree Archive has since expanded its operations well beyond Michigan. The organization has planted cloned ancient trees in multiple countries, established living archives of champion tree genetics, and partnered with universities and research institutions to study the genomic characteristics that distinguish the world's most exceptional trees. Their work has inspired similar efforts by other organizations and has helped elevate the concept of genetic conservation for trees into the broader conversation about biodiversity and climate resilience.

Milarch remains an unconventional figure in the environmental world. He is not a credentialed scientist, and his motivations are rooted as much in personal conviction as in peer-reviewed research. But the trees he and his team have cloned are real, growing, and sequestering carbon. His work represents a distinctive contribution to conservation — one that operates not at the level of policy or protest, but at the level of a single cutting placed carefully into soil, carrying within it the genetic memory of a tree that stood for a thousand years.