Arbor Day: Friday April 26th

Today is Arbor Day, which is supposed to focus our attention on the value of trees--another good event to build around for an "Earth Week" or "Earth Month."

Many communities do tree planting and other events in association with it. For example, Lake Zurich, Illinois leverages the event for volunteer engagement and clean ups at the city's 32 public parks.

-- Celebrate Arbor Day lists events

The website The Conversation has a piece, "The value of trees: 4 essential readas"

1. Cooling and greening city streets
2. Holding down the Great Plains
3. Improving urban air and water quality
4. Making streets safer

Over the years, wrt trees, two of the biggest ideas "concerning trees" that have shaped my thinking significantly are:

1. At an APA presentation in 2004, Parks Planner David Barth in his then approach of linking City Beautiful and New Urbanism approaches, mentioned as one of three key elements is:

treating streets as linear parks

The Parkway approach from the 1920s is still applicable today.

-- Parkways, San Francisco Better Streets
-- Boulevards and Parkways, Seattle Open Space 2100
-- Street Types, Boston Urban Design Manual
-- Parkway Design Guidelines, Denver

but not just for boulevard-type streets, but "ordinary" streets too.

2. Cities as "municipal arboretums."  Most cities manage street trees via a forestry department that can be located in a variety of different agencies--public works, transportation, utilities, or parks.

Many cities and counties have regulations concerning maintenance and care of trees on public and private property. But they still think about trees more individually rather than as a part of a larger forest.

Under the ArbNet program, the Morton Arboretum in Illinois has developed an arboretum accreditation program for communities.  It aims for the consideration and operation of a community's urban forest as a unit, an open "municipal arboretum."  Cities that are so accredited are Basalt, CO., Bexley, OH,  Oak Park, IL. and Newport, RI ("Bexley could be first U.S. city to be declared arboretum;" Columbus Dispatch).

Other ongoing issues

Economic value of trees/urban forest. There are many reports on the economic value of trees, of both a direct and indirect nature such as this one.  Studies have found that commercial districts with a quality tree canopy are more successful than those without one ("City Trees and Property Values," Arborist News, 2007).

The National Tree Benefit Calculator provides data on the economic value of individual trees in terms of storm water, property value, energy savings, air quality, and carbon dioxide capture.

According to the US Forest service, cities see an average US$2.25 return each year, for every dollar invested in trees.

Save the Elm action by the Sheffield Tree Action Groups.

Trees as an expensive element in maintaining public space.  Unfortunately, because trees can be "expensive" to maintain, bean counters can see trees merely as a hindrance, especially when the environmental benefits aren't taken into consideration.

With that perspective it can be seemingly cheaper to cut trees down. 

This is a problem in Sheffield, England, where the city signed an outsourcing contract for street maintenance with no opportunity for public input concerning the disposition of trees.  The contractor has been aggressively cutting down trees ("Put a price on urban trees – and halt this chainsaw massacre," Guardian).

 I am not doctrinaire in believing that you should never cut a tree down for new types of infrastructure ("Nearly 100 trees may fall in Malden sidewalk project," Boston Globe) , so long as new trees are planted.  In part this is because I grew trees from replanted seedlings on our yard when I was a teen, and I am doing so again now, in part to replace old trees that sadly have died or are dying.  But the maple and oak trees that are growing will replace the oak tree that died and the maple that is dying.  (Although the new oak is not a willow oak, which is the one that we had.)

Watershed maintenance and the potential for wildfire.  Some cities out west are beginning to fund broader watershed maintenance as a way to reduce the risk of water source contamination from wildfire.  Although there are teething problems with the concept when it comes to implementation.

Flagstaff, Arizona is one of a few jurisdictions to look at management of the potential for wildfires as an element of watershed and water quality management. In 2012, they passed a bond issue to pay for mitigation. It was particularly noteworthy because much of the watershed lies outside of the city borders. Santa Fe does this too ("Got water? Thank (and save) a forest," Santa Fe New Mexican).

-- Flagstaff Watershed Protection Project: Home