Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry is committed to environmental stewardship. We recognize our responsibility to protect the environment while delivering first class service to every guest, every day. That’s why we’ve proudly partnered with veritree, a forward-thinking company dedicated to the restoration of our forests, one tree at a time.
Through this partnership and the generosity of our guests, we’re participating in the vital task of replanting Canadian forests devastated by wildfires in the past couple of years. By participating in this endeavor, we’re not just rebuilding ecosystems; we’re leaving behind a legacy, ensuring a flourishing environment for generations to come.
As we embark on the 2024 season, we invite you to join us in creating this legacy and making a meaningful impact on our planet.
Here’s how you can contribute:
– Donate in person at any of our locations: Look out for our donation boxes located in our ticket offices at all three docks. Simply drop in your contribution and stay informed about our progress!
– Add trees to your ticket order: Visit any of our ticket offices in person and opt to add trees to your ticket purchase at $1/tree. Unfortunately, we’re unable to facilitate tree donations through online ticket orders at this time.
Together, let’s sow the seeds of change and nurture a greener, more sustainable future for all.
Explore the impact this nature-based solution has on our planet
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- Carbon Sequestering: Depending on the type of tree, these living skyscrapers can sequester tens of pounds to hundreds of pounds of CO2 a year in exchange for oxygen.
- Habitat and Resources: Trees provide habitats and resources to a variety of species. They offer food, shelter, protection, water filtration, land preservation, opportunities to increase biodiversity, and more.
- Temperature control: Trees and vegetation aid in lowering the overall temperature of an area.
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Veritree’s goal is to provide confidence that the impacts of our efforts in investing in nature-based solutions are real, measured, and verified. Through this partnership, we ensure the right trees are planted in the right place and the trees, once planted, are staying in the ground as intended.
veritree serves as a fully integrated, blockchain-based management system that provides end-to-end transparency by connecting sponsors of projects directly with the social and environmental impacts on the ground.
veritree is designed to improve transparency and trust through data and tools that revitalize ecosystems, strengthen communities, and build climate solutions. veritree currently runs its global restoration network via on-the-ground monitoring, using mobile devices in the hands of local community members to measure impact, and engaging sponsors and stakeholders on their impacts through our platform.
veritree utilizes blockchain technology to provide sponsors with a fully integrated platform to support field-level data collection, site planning, inventory management, and impact monitoring. The system was built to gather data from the first day of tree planting and provide greater transparency into the entire process.
Unlike other verification efforts, veritree technology works with the planting organizations to validate, monitor and analyze ground-level efforts for activities such as tree planting, and enables the consumer community, where both the sponsors and its consumers can follow the planting organizations’ efforts and see tangible results of their purchasing habits.
For a quick overview, please visit https://youtu.be/eM7ETuDgCnI
One of the biggest challenges in scaling nature-based solutions is providing stakeholders with the assurance that efforts are making the impact as promised. Using blockchain technology within the veritree platform helps address verification concerns, including double-counting or lack of additionality, poor monitoring for permanence, and integration of on-the-ground data. The veritree system is built to ensure transparency, traceability and clear ownership by tracking every stage of the tree planting process.
veritree utilizes Cardano blockchain, an open-source and decentralized platform, to mint all the trees that are planted in the field. These trees are distributed on the public ledger to the participating sponsors of the planting projects. This transparent distribution of the trees ensures that the associated impacts are only accounted for one-time.
There have been major concerns on the environmental impact of blockchain due to its high energy requirement and carbon footprint. veritree chose to partner with Cardano as it utilizes ‘proof of stake’ for its consensus mechanism. This cutting-edge mechanism is significantly less energy intensive than the first generation of blockchain, which is reliant on proof of work as its consensus mechanism, while providing the same level of security.
Planting trees in wild-fire affected areas is crucial for ecosystem recovery and resilience. While the wildfires took place on Canadian land, the United States, including northern Michigan, was still affected.
Our choice to prioritize this Canadian site was influenced by factors like availability and logistics. We are keeping a close watch on U.S. and Michigan sites and will explore opportunities to join efforts there too once they’re accessible.
Shepler’s goal for the 2024 season is to plant 6,000 trees to help the replenish the forests of Canada after the 2023 forest fires.