CHUCK LEAVELL: On thisepisode of America's Forests, I'm back in the saddle for Part 2 of my Wisconsin woods adventure.

First up - the Urban Wood movement that turns city trees into beautiful heirloom furniture.

Then KABOOM!

as I go behind the scenes of the Forest Products Lab, the nation's premiere site for wood research.

CHUCK LEAVELL: The tension is building.

Whoa!

I spend a beautiful day on the water, remembering the legacy of forester and conservation hero, Aldo Leopold.

And I go back to school to meet the next generation of forest fans at Log-A-Load for Kids.

Hi, I'm Chuck Leavell.

You know, in addition to my beautiful family, there's two things in my life that I have a special interest in and love for; Music and Trees.

My wife Rose Lane and I own and manage our own forest land right here in Georgia, Charlane Plantation.

We grow Southern Yellow Pine as well as other species here.

And you know as I get to travel the world with The Rolling Stones or some of the other artists that I'm so privileged to work with, I get to meet all kind of folks that also have a passion and love for trees, forests, and the outdoors.

And now I get to share their stories with you.

So join me as we journey through America's Forests.

[music: "Coming Home"] CHUCK LEAVELL: My trip through Wisconsin continues as I head south, passing by corn fields and cow pastures on my way to Wisconsin's largest city, Milwaukee.

Milwaukee may be famous for beer but it also has a national reputation in the world of urban forestry.

This city is proud of the trees that line its bike paths and boulevards.

And it works hard to maintain them.

But every once in a while, a tree has to come down.

And that's a job for crew chief Najjar Abdullah.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Hey, man!

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: Hey, Chuck, how's it going?

CHUCK LEAVELL: I'm doing great.

You're Najjar?

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: Yes, sir.

That's the way to come in, too.

CHUCK LEAVELL: [laughs] That ain't bad is it?

Well, you got something for me to do today?

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: Yes I do.

We have an Elm tree we're going to cut down, and it died from Dutch Elm disease.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Put me to work, baby.

I'm ready.

CHUCK LEAVELL: How long have you been doing this?

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: So I've been with the forestry department for 23 years.

CHUCK LEAVELL: 23 years?

You've got a little experience, don't you?

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: A little bit.

A little bit.

A little bit.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Are you from here?

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: Yes, Chuck.

Born and raised, and this was one of the reasons I ended up in the forestry department.

I wanted to work for the community which I lived in.

And then I love the outdoors.

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: So, we have roughly 200,000 street trees.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Wow.

200,000 trees.

That's amazing.

That's a lot of looking after, man.

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: It definitely is.

And we stay busy year-round doing tree work.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Keeping those things healthy.

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: That's right.

CHUCK LEAVELL: That's great.

CHUCK LEAVELL: You have to be super careful taking down a massive tree in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Najjar begins by cutting a notch in the direction of where he wants the tree to fall.

As an extra precaution, he gets help from another crew member.

NAJJAR ABDULLAH: Imani.

So, we're all set.

We have our notch.

We're going to have you apply some pressure on the rope, and nice, steady, easy pull on my word.

IMANI HUNTER: All right.

Sounds good.

CHUCK LEAVELL: The back cut is where I come in.

l go around the opposite side of the tree, being very careful to leave a hinge, so the tree falls towards the notch.

Najjar will finish it off.

And then it's "Timberrrrrr!"

And it falls exactly where he wanted it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: In the past, all the wood from a big tree like this would have gone to waste-- destined for a landfill, or chipped for mulch.

But today many urban trees have a second life.

DWAYNE SPERBER: Around 15 years ago or so, an urban wood movement emerged.

Milwaukee, for example, removes 5000 trees a year in the normal cycle of a tree's life.

It could be from damage or insect or natural mortality.

If across our country, wood from urban and community tree removals were processed into lumber, it would equal four billion board feet a year.

CHUCK LEAVELL: To see first-hand just how valuable urban wood can be, I visit The Wood Cycle, a shop started by Paul Morrison in 2001 to turn city trees into stunning pieces of furniture.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Paul?

PAUL MORRISON: Hi.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Hey man.

Chuck Leavell.

PAUL MORRISON: How are you doing today?

CHUCK LEAVELL: Just great.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Looks like quite an operation here.

CHUCK LEAVELL: What's the chalk marks here?

PAUL MORRISON: Cambridge street is where this one came from.

Any good log like this, we're going to label where it came from.

And then all the other numbers are dimensions on how large this piece is.

High character slab.

You can see lots of knots and stuff.

Trees in the city, they branch out lower to the ground, so you get a lot more character in a urban tree than you typically see in a woodlot walnut.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Man, this is beautiful.

So this is walnut?

PAUL MORRISON: This is a walnut.

PAUL MORRISON: We don't know yet what this one's going to be, but it could be a variety of things, a bar top, a tabletop.

CHUCK LEAVELL: That is just some gorgeous wood.

Look at the grain in that, and the different coloration, that you get a little light and dark.

That's just absolutely beautiful.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Alright, man.

Is this the woodworking shop?

Look at this.

This is absolutely incredible, man.

Tell me, tell me what it is.

PAUL MORRISON: So it's a walnut again.

We just saw walnut before that was being cut.

This is about two years later in the process.

It's been air-dried for about a year and a half, kiln dried.

Now it's actually being worked into a tabletop for a client of ours.

So we've got an area here that hasn't been planed yet.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Uh oh.

You're going to put to work, man?

PAUL MORRISON: Oh yeah!

This isn't an easy day.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Okay.

All right.

PAUL MORRISON: So I'll show you the job, if you're up to it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: You show me.

PAUL MORRISON: Ok.

So we're just going to be planing.

So anywhere you see it's a little duller here, that's where we haven't hit yet.

So literally just shaving it out, trying to hit all those spots just a little bit.

CHUCK LEAVELL: All right.

Well look here.

I better roll my sleeves up a bit.

PAUL MORRISON: Oh yeah.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Time to go to work?

PAUL MORRISON: Go to work.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Whoa!

PAUL MORRISON: Yeah, little bit of effort there.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Yeah, you got to kind of keep it going, don't you?

PAUL MORRISON: Yup.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Am I doin' ok?

PAUL MORRISON: You're getting it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: That's a sharp knife, isn't it?

PAUL MORRISON: Yeah, and it's feeling good over there.

CHUCK LEAVELL: But I just have to say, how great is it that this beautiful thing is not going to waste, that it's not going to just rot somewhere or get burned up or go to a landfill?

You know, it's going to go to somebody's home and be a treasured piece of furniture from now on.

PAUL MORRISON: And that's the case with so many of these urban trees.

You don't want to lose the memories that are associated with them, and to be able to preserve those is a big part of urban woodworking.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Across the United States, dozens of other shops like The Wood Cycle are cropping up as artisans discover how magical it is to work with urban wood.

DWAYNE SPERBER: We are becoming the model that's spreading across the country.

Wisconsin is making the template so that municipalities and arborists have a confident path to ensure that these trees can be considered for lumber or for other products that come from trees.

We're taking something that somebody doesn't want anymore.

It has to be removed, but we're considering it for the highest use.

If you consider the farm to table movements around the country, this is tree to table, this is our tree to table movement.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Tree to table, tree to chair, tree to dresser.

There is nothing like urban trees to beautify our streets and our homes.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Next up, Madison, where I get to go behind-the scenes at the USDA's Forest Products Laboratory or FPL.

CHUCK LEAVELL: The FPL was started back in 1910 as the premiere research facility of the US Forest Service.

From the very beginning, they've been a hub for cutting-edge testing of all kinds of things made from wood-- from railroad ties to airplane propellers.

For more than 100 years, the team here has found ways to make wood products stronger, more durable, and more sustainable.

It all starts with close examination of different kinds of wood.

ALEX WIEDENHOEFT: We're here at the Forest Products Laboratory Center for Wood Anatomy Research, which is the home of the world's largest research wood collection.

So in this room we have scientifically collected wood specimens from all around the world.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Alex Wiedenhoeft knows a thing or two about identifying wood species.

ALEX WIEDENHOEFT: The first time I made my first slide of an unknown hardwood for wood identification, it was actually a specimen of Elm, and I put it under the microscope, and it was so beautiful I got goosebumps.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Each and every species of wood has a unique cellular structure.

And it takes years of training to learn the differences.

But today, the FPL is harnessing computers to do the job.

ALEX WIEDENHOEFT: In 2010 we initiated this project to develop a machine learning, computer vision-based system for wood identification that we call the XyloTron.

CHUCK LEAVELL: XyloTron?

Sounds to me like some kind of science fiction robot.

And that's not too far off.

PRABU RAVINDRAN: So the XyloTron system consists of this imaging device, through which you can capture good high resolution images of wood, and an artificial intelligence software that's loaded onto this computer.

So given a piece of wood, you take this imaging device and you capture an image.

And the artificial intelligence systems processes this image, and identifies this piece of wood as Red Oak.

ALEX WIEDENHOEFT: The genesis of this project really came from going around the world and teaching human beings to identify wood to help combat illegal logging and protect endangered species.

So that, at the point of export, or at the point of it leaving the forest, or prior to it coming into another country, an inspector or a law enforcement person can say, "Wait a second, there's a problem here."

And they can seize the shipment or take appropriate legal action.

One of the surprising things that we've learned doing this project is just the global reach of illegal logging.

About 80% of it worldwide is actually controlled by international organized crime.

The global economic impact of illegal logging is estimated at about $130 billion a year, in terms of the actual financial costs of lost revenue, lost taxes.

But that doesn't really speak to the underlying environmental damage that totally uncontrolled deforestation can have on a forest, on an ecosystem, or on the world.

PRABU RAVINDRAN: While as scientists, we are intrigued by these cellular patterns and we use them to make a scientific identification, you just cannot help yourself from admiring nature's art right here.

It's just plain beautiful.

That's it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Another long line of research at FPL looks at wood as fiber-- starting with pulp and now at what's called nanocellulose.

Nanocellulose is wood that's been broken down into microscopic fiber so that it can be used in making new materials-- like packaging that replaces plastic or a concrete that is stronger and greener.

But the FPL also works on a much larger scale-- you might even say explosive!

For decades, the FPL has conducted rigorous testing of the wood that goes into making our homes and offices, making sure they're safe to use.

Dwight McDonald shows me how it's done.

CHUCK LEAVELL: So, Dwight, this is where you guys break stuff, is that right?

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes, yes.

This is actually what we call where the rubber meets the road.

CHUCK LEAVELL: So, what we're going to do, I think you're going to lower this piece down and- DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes.

CHUCK LEAVELL: And put this vice together- DWIGHT MCDONALD: And then we'll move this head forward, so that both grips are full of material, and then we'll actually do our best to pull it apart.

CHUCK LEAVELL: We're going to blow this baby up.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Blow this baby up.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Let's do it.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes, sir.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Does that look about right?

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yup, that's just about right.

We're just going to move the head forward.

And just work back and lock these in place.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Does that look good?

DWIGHT MCDONALD: That looks good.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Okay.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: We'll put a preload on and hit go.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Let's do it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: How much pressure do you put on this thing?

DWIGHT MCDONALD: It varies, but right now it's got about 800, 900 pounds of force on it right now.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Okay, and you break all kinds of different boards, and woods, and beams, and everything.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes, exactly, exactly.

What we do here is, we actually get down to the actual engineering properties of the materials.

CHUCK LEAVELL: All right, I'm hearing a little cracking there.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: We got about 18--19,000 pounds.

CHUCK LEAVELL: 19,000, we're at 19,000.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CHUCK LEAVELL: The tension is building man.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes, 29- CHUCK LEAVELL: I'm getting nervous.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yup, 30,000.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Whoo, 30,000.

CHUCK LEAVELL: It's talking to us, isn't it?

CHUCK LEAVELL: Whoah!

Fantastic!

That was loud.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yes, yeah, yeah.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Thar she blows!

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Well, where we would have probably predicted, right?

At a knot, there was a pattern of two knots there, and stuff, and that would be the weakest section of the material.

CHUCK LEAVELL: And the pressure, I'm looking at the meter-- DWIGHT MCDONALD: Yup, at least 39, maybe even 40,000.

CHUCK LEAVELL: 40,000 pounds of pressure-- amazing.

Well, it's great work that you're doing here, man.

Thank you.

DWIGHT MCDONALD: Appreciate it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Just gotta say, there's nothing like breaking boards to make my day.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Now it's time to leave the cities behind, and head back out on the open road.

Just call me Easy Rider.

You could say I'm on a pilgrimage.

I'm heading to the stomping grounds of one of my conservation heros near the Baraboo Hills.

These woods belonged to Aldo Leopold, a pioneer in forest ecology.

In 1935, when Leopold bought this land, it was an abandoned farm with a run-down chicken coop.

The first thing he did was plant trees-- thousands of them.

It was a grand experiment to restore health to an ailing piece of land.

As one of the founders of the science of wildlife management, Leopold wrote passionately about deepening the connection between people and nature.

In his words, Le opold's land backs up to the Wisconsin River.

And on a beautiful day like this, I couldn't resist going out for a paddle.

I'm joined by Buddy Huffaker, the executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Wow.

What a gorgeous day.

What a gorgeous river.

We're on the Wisconsin River.

Tell me about the Wisconsin.

BUDDY HUFFAKER: The Wisconsin River used to be called the hardest working river in America because it was the river that was used to float the north woods of the upper midwest down to the Mississippi River, and eventually New Orleans.

So it has a strong connection to our forestry heritage.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Let's talk about Aldo, one of the greatest conservationists ever, and such an iconic figure.

Give me a little history on Aldo.

BUDDY HUFFAKER: Well, most people would know Aldo Leopold because he is the author of A Sand County Almanac.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Of course.

BUDDY HUFFAKER: It's really one of the cornerstone pieces of literature for the environmental conservation field.

It's been translated into 14 different languages.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Amazing.

BUDDY HUFFAKER: In it he puts forward this idea of a land ethic, really challenging us to recognize that we are a part of the biological community.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Right.

BUDDY HUFFAKER: And as such, we need to give the plants, the animals, the same kind of considerations we do our friends and family.

That, effectively, our health comes from the natural world.

And that book has led a lot of people to care about the natural world and figure out how they can make a difference in taking care of it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Aldo Leopold's mission to restore Wisconsin woods continues to inspire.

Right up the road from Leopold's shack is 10,000 acres of a preserve owned by the Nature Conservancy.

I join Ann Calhoun and Mike Mossman to see their restoration work first-hand.

ANN CALHOUN: So the Nature Conservancy started working here in the Baraboo Hills about 50 years ago.

And our goal here is really to think about protecting a large block of forest for the wide diversity of plants and animals that live here.

CHUCK LEAVELL: A big part of that goal is to increase the number of oaks.

Oaks used to dominate this part of Wisconsin, before people cut them down for farms and homes.

ANN CALHOUN: So, Chuck, the Conservancy has really been focusing our restoration work here on thinning the forest.

We've focused on getting a lot more light to the understory and that really benefits oak and a lot of other plant species, opens up the forest, gets a lot more light to the ground for the acorns and for the oaks to naturally regenerate.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Oaks are a keystone species at the heart of a food web.

Acorns provide food for wildlife.

The leaves feed millions of insects.

And the insects are a food source for thousands of migratory birds.

ANN CALHOUN: It's almost like a feeding frenzy when you think about birds moving through and stopping over on their long journeys to really pack on some calories and be able to fuel their journey northward.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Every spring, more than 200 different species make a pit stop in the Baraboo Hills.

Mike, an ornithologist, knows and loves them all.

But he does have a special affection for one bird.

MIKE MOSSMAN: There's one that's sort of a target species called the cerulean warbler, which is in deep trouble throughout its range in Eastern North America that needs large trees and it needs large tracts of forest, which we have here in the Baraboo Hills.

It also likes white oaks and it likes kind of the structure that oaks provide for them to feed in and nest on.

So this is one of the few remaining places for cerulean warblers in the state.

CHUCK LEAVELL: I can just imagine what these woods will sound like come springtime-- immersed in a symphony of songbirds.

And I can't help but think that Aldo Leopold would be moved to know that the ethic that he put forward nearly 100 years ago is thriving in Wisconsin.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Time to leave the land of Leopold and get back on that Harley.

My final stop is just outside of Green Bay in the small town of Suamico.

I'm here at a local elementary school to participate in an event to benefit Log-A-Load for Kids, a national charity run by loggers.

The day is filled with opportunities to be hands-on with different aspects of forestry.

CHUCK AND KIDS: Yay!

CHUCK LEAVELL: Who knows, maybe one of these kids will end up a tree farmer like me.

RYAN WELNETZ: When kids are learning about the forest, they're learning about so many other things that come from it.

VOLUNTEER: Look at how long that tail is.

They can then understand why it's so important to sustain that.

For me, it's passing onto that next generation so they can pass onto the next generation and so on.

[ horn beeping] CHUCK LEAVELL: There are 475 5th graders here today, from all across the district.

It's organized chaos-- every 15 minutes, they dash off to the next station.

VOLUNTEER: ... show you what it feels like to be a firefighter Capping it all off is an active timber harvest-- the kids' favorite part and mine, too.

CHUCK LEAVELL: How are we doing?

VOLUNTEER: Good.

I think you've got it.

CHUCK LEAVELL: It's not just fun to harvest logs - it's also helping a good cause.

Every year, Log-A-Load events across the country raise millions of dollars for charity.

All the trees harvested today will be sold to benefit children's hospitals.

AARON BURMEISTER: The monies go to the Children's Miracle Network and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

And so far, in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, $1.1 million have been donated, in 18 years thereabouts.

CHUCK LEAVELL: And I just think it's so great because it's a community effort and it helps those kids immensely, doesn't it.

AARON BURMEISTER: Yes it does.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Log-a-Load fundraising happens all over the country-- but in Wisconsin there's a twist.

This state has a tradition of what are known as "school forests."

GRETCHEN MARSHALL: A school forest is a parcel of land that is owned by a school district that is sustainably managed and provides educational opportunities.

So we like to think of it as an outdoor classroom.

It's a classroom without walls.

CHUCK LEAVELL: In the 1920s, educators saw an opportunity to get kids outside to restore Wisconsin's clear-cut forests.

The schools bought land and started replanting trees.

Today, more than 400 schools have their own woods.

RYAN WELNETZ: The magic of it, first of all, is that we have the forest on our property.

So we can walk out to the forest and teach the kids literally in the forest.

ELLIE: This is my elementary school, so I've been in these woods a lot.

I think it's really cool that people would take time out of their day to teach kids like us, who don't really know woods stuff.

So I think that's really cool.

VOLUNTEER: If a tree is stressed, and all that, gr owth rings will be really smalll CHUCK LEAVELL: Everyone at the Log-A-Load event is a volunteer, inspired to pass along their passion for the woods.

SAWMILL VOLUNTEER: Every portion of the tree has value to it.

RYAN WELNETZ: Will they remember this?

Absolutely.

They will absolutely remember what they got to see today.

That's more important to me than passing the test.

That's more important to me than knowing that they read the book.

Because they'll remember this because they were engaged in it all day long.

CHUCK LEAVELL: And I will always remember my trip through Wisconsin.

The forests, the people, and, of course, that motorcycle.

CHUCK LEAVELL: Thanks so much for watching.

And I hope you'll join us on the next episode of America's Forests, with me, Chuck Leavell.

In the meantime, enjoy the woods, and enjoy the music.