Planting hope in Sarajevo. (Clippings).

"This is it," Debbie Armstrong says as she looks down from atop the slope of Sarajevo's Mt. Jahorina, where she won her 1984 Olympic gold medal in giant slalom. It's early October and we have been driving the mountain access roads not far from Sarajevo for nearly an hour. We've found the slalom bill, but not the one she had really hoped to see on her first trip back after nearly 17 years. Then we stop the van and peer over the crest of a ridge and there it is below, part of a gorgeous fall alpine panorama.

"I never thought it would be so emotional just being here," she says.

Yesterday Debbie was the center of attention at an event to plant trees on a Sarajevo hillside devastated during the war in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Then, townspeople cut down city trees for heat and cooking fuel when the city was surrounded in a multi-year seige.

For more than a year Debbie has been the volunteer spokesperson for Global ReLeaf Sarajevo, AMERICAN FORESTS' campaign to plant 300,000 trees to reforest slopes at risk of collapsing from lack of tree cover. Partnering with AMERICAN FORESTS in the effort are: the U.S. Embassy, U.S. Agency for International Development, the city and canton of Sarajevo, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee (SLOC) for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and the U.S. Ski Team, among others including U.S. Forest Service, who paid for the trip.

Sarajevo's fail planting began with scores of students, scouts, Embassy Charge d'Affairs Christopher Hoh, Deputy Mayor Savo Vlaski, and senior representatives from the mayor's office among others.

Debbie told those gathered that her time in Sarajevo had been a highlight of her life. She was grateful, she said, to be able to help give something of value back to the city and people who gave so much to her.

Senior Fellow Dan Smith accompanied Armstrong to Sarajevo for the planting and filed that report for us. While there, Debbie and Dan visited with officials from the city and U.S. Embassy, planted trees, and toured Olympic venues from 1984, many of them damaged by fighting.

By planting and caring for 300,000 hillside trees and more than 3,000 street trees, Global ReLeaf Sarajevo hopes to help the city return its tree cover to prewar conditions. In addition to the psychological benefits, the trees will reduce stormwater runoff and air pollution and provide wildlife habitat.

Some 26,000 trees will be planted this spring on eight slopes that were prepared and stabilized over the summer. Many of the forests that remain around the city are land-mined and inaccessible to the public. Slopes in and around the city have been deforested, raising the specter of landslides that could cause upwards of $100 million in damages.

AMERICAN FORESTS' Global ReLeaf Sarajevo education and action campaign is supported by SLOC as part of its Plant It Green 2002! international tree-planting campaign. The program encourages individuals, organizations, agencies, and corporations to help plant and care for trees to restore the devastated urban forest of Sarajevo.

You can help AMERICAN FORESTS plant trees in this and other ecosystem restoration projects by visiting the Global ReLeaf section of www.american forests.org or by calling 800/545-TREE. For each $2 donated, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will contribute $1 toward the purchase of trees that will stabilize slopes at risk for landslides.