Everything in an old growth redwood forest is bigger than life.

It's like walking back two million years in time.

Pretty much all of it was harvested in the last century, in the 20th century, by humans,

for use in houses and other commercial uses.

What we hope to get when we propagate or clone a champion tree is the exact for use in houses and other commercial uses.

What we hope to get when we propagate or clone a champion tree is the exact genetics of that tree. It's proven itself over time that it can deal with adverse conditions.

And over a thousand year period, it's seen probably a lot of different things in its life

that are pretty tough to deal with and it's found different ways to survive and thrive in these environments.

An old-growth redwood forest is nature's cathedral. Light filters through the giant trees,

bathing the ferns and mosses below in a primordial green glow. It's a place where there's a ray of hope to combat climate change,

but you've got to go up and up.

How cool is this?

I'm Ann Thompson, and this is NBC on Earth.

In the canopy of the 300-foot Old Growth Coast Redwood, the going gets weird.

Mosses, lichens, fernmats, even other trees all grow in the canopy soil. The Brotherhood tree, a massive redwood in Clameth, California, is host to a complex wildlife habitat,

and its canopy is full of surprises for those who venture to the top.

They're everywhere. Bats flutter out into the faces of climbers, and arborist Damien Corray and Jake Malark

watches hundreds of birds circle territorially above.

Starlings?

Starlings?

For Jake Malark, it's the perfect place to clip samples of the tree, small enough to fit into the palm

of his hand.

...