In the News
Philadelphia Inquirer, Saturday, October 30, 2004
"
Spreading Wealth: A Canopy of Green"
By Don Sapatkin Inquirer Staff Writer
"It was fun playing in the dirt," Audrey Wallace said.
On a Saturday morning she could have spent studying - or sleeping - the University of the Sciences student had managed to play, exercise, and better her community, all by planting saplings in the formerly treeless 4700 block of Warrington Avenue in West Philadelphia.
This was the spirit that a tiny band of urban planners had hoped to kindle as they began what will eventually be dozens of plantings in older communities. More people will root trees next weekend in
Warminster, Harleysville, and several Philadelphia locations; a continuing project has volunteers out in Camden this morning.
The goal, besides adding thousands of trees in the thinning urban forest, is to inspire an ever-widening circle of tree-lovers who will respect and nurture the thick trunks by the gutter as if they were delicate stems in a flowerpot.
Trees do a lot of good besides giving pleasure to the senses:
Leaves catch and hold rain, roots absorb it, and the whole structure blocks fast-moving sheets in a storm, helping overburdened storm-water systems.
They clean and freshen the air by removing pollutants.
In clusters, they cool ambient air; the shade from one big tree can chill a house.
Just 10 or 15 years back, when environmentally aware Americans worried about destroying Amazon rain forest, even engineers and planners gave little thought to the impact of bulldozing trees for development here.
Then a 129-year-old conservation group, American Forests, developed formulas to measure, in dollars, the public costs and benefits of removing or adding trees. Meanwhile, improved satellite imaging literally began showing the trees in the forests.
Applying its formulas to the high-resolution pictures, the group has been telling communities how fast their canopy is disappearing and how much could be saved by protecting old trees or planting new ones.
In civic-minded Salem, Ore., the public responded by setting goals for tree cover. A wealthy Washingtonian gave $50 million for trees in the nation's capital.
The Philadelphia-area analysis found a 6 percent decline in tree canopy over 15 years in the eight-county region; developing Chester County lost 24 percent.
Michael DiBerardinis read about the report 18 months ago, as he was developing priorities as the state's new secretary of conservation and natural resources. He said his staff decided to bring public, private and nonprofit entities, as well as citizens, "together around an issue that they care deeply about."
"TreeVitalize" was launched on Arbor Day 2004 with $8 million and two primary goals:
Plant 20,000 trees over four years in older cities, boroughs and towns with less than 25 percent tree cover, American Forests' target for those areas.
Create 1,000 acres of forested buffers along flood-prone Southeastern Pennsylvania creeks.
An unrelated program in New Jersey is using $1 million of the penalty paid by a utility accused of emitting pollutants to plant trees in Camden. Nearly 900 of a goal of 1,500 are in.
All of the grunt work in both states is being done by volunteers, which slows the process but provides other benefits.
"Are we going to be able to replace those millions of trees that we lost?" said Patrice Carroll, director of the Pennsylvania initiative. "Of course not."
But by focusing on small areas - a couple of blocks, a community park - even a handful of new trees will stand out. And recruiting locals to do the plantings, she believes, will turn them into "stewards" who value and learn to care for the trees.
At the first big planting, one of the state's partners, University City's UC Green, dispatched 100 volunteers to five locations to put in 50 crab apples, hawthorns, amur maples and ornamental cherries - "underwire" varieties that Peco, another partner, would not need to trim.
A woman on her way home gazed in silence at all of the trees - an absence she had felt since moving to Warrington Avenue 13 years ago. It was only one block, with just 10 trees. Change will come over time, Carroll predicted, as plantings on one street build demand on another, "so people say, 'Hey, we want some trees on our block, too.' "
Contact staff writer Don Sapatkin at 610-313-8246 or dsapatkin@phillynews.com.
Related Links: Posted on Sat, Oct. 30, 2004
How much tree cover do you have now?
Scientists analyze satellite images to determine surface area covered by trees, grass, water, or impervious materials such as concrete.
The following online maps show average tree cover by municipality (Southeastern Pennsylvania*) or census tract (each county).
Bucks: http://go.philly.com/trees-bucks.
Chester: http://go.philly.com/trees-chesco.
Delaware: http://go.philly.com/trees-delco.
Montgomery: http://go.philly.com/trees-montco.
Philadelphia: http://go.philly.com/trees-phila.
Southeastern Pennsylvania: http://go.philly.com/trees-se-pa.
* The Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry worked with the U.S. Forest Service to produce local tree-canopy maps; similar maps are not available for New Jersey.
How much tree cover should you have?
American Forests concluded its March 2003 analysis by recommending general goals for tree cover in this region:
Suburban residential... 50 percent
Urban residential... 25 percent
Central business district... 15 percent
Average for region... 40 percent
The full report: http://go.philly.com/trees-analysis.