By Sarah Wade

QUINCY JONES knew his neighborhood was going downhill. The 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis had hit some of Detroit’s neighborhoods with the force of a bomb blast. Several years later, Jones’ community of Osborn — on the east side of the city — still looked gutted.

“There were blighted areas and open spaces,” said Jones, the executive director of the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance. “It didn’t look pretty.”

Then, in 2012, Jones heard that a nonprofit called The Greening of Detroit was planting trees in parts of the city that no longer had much greenery. He started volunteering with them in Osborn, going door to door and asking folks if they wanted trees on their blocks. Most did: Over the next two years, the group planted more than 170 trees in the community.

Those trees led to even more greenery: In 2016, American Forests partnered with the neighborhood, The Greening of Detroit and Bank of America to build the Osborn Outdoor Educational Center — a tree-lined park where there once stood four blighted, abandoned homes. Jones said residents and children go there all the time to enjoy the space, which includes a caterpillar made of tires for kids to play on, a trail, sitting areas, and public art. And he said that all that green has tangibly revitalized Osborn.

“To me, getting trees signals development,” Jones explained. “It’s a way to improve the community.”

TREES FOR ALL

Jones intuited something essential but often overlooked in conversations about urban planning: the human need for trees and other natural green things. That need is present even in the concrete hearts of big cities. But it only tends to be met in wealthier urban precincts, and not just in Detroit.

“In most cities in the U.S., you can take a map of trees and a map of income and overlay them, and you’ll almost always see that more trees are in higher-income neighborhoods,” said Sarah Anderson, senior manager of Tree Equity at American Forests. “Lower-income neighbor- hoods don’t have as many.”

This reflects a huge problem, Anderson said, because trees pump benefits into the communities around them. They can lower energy bills and raise property values. They can improve academic performance and air quality. They can protect residents from heat, boost people’s moods, lower crime rates, and create jobs.

“Trees are not just decoration,” said Anderson. “They’re life-and-death infrastructure.”

They’re infrastructure, in other words, that every human should have access to, regardless of income or race or location. American Forests has coined a term to drive the idea home: Tree Equity.

In cities throughout the U.S., American Forests is partnering with metropolitan and state governments, businesses, nonprofits and neighborhood leaders, like Quincy Jones, to spread awareness of Tree Equity — what it is and the difference it can make for people’s health, finances and career prospects. And block by block, these entities are working together to make it a reality.

LIFE-AND-DEATH INFRASTRUCTURE

Last summer, Matthew May interned for Speak for the Trees, a Boston nonprofit dedicated to improving urban tree canopy. He walked large stretches of the city, logging information about hundreds of individual trees for a city-wide inventory. In lower-income neighborhoods, like Roxbury and Dorchester, he was jarred by how few trees there were — and how hot it was.

“You would walk down a street that could have been a mile long that literally had no trees,” said May, a student at Merrimack College in Boston. “The sun would be 90 degrees out, and there was no shade. But then you would walk down Beacon Street, in the nice part of Boston, and you would be shaded the entire time.”

That shade has health implications. The deadliest extreme weather phenomenon — the one that takes more lives annually than all other natural catastrophes combined — is heat. As the planet continues warming, lower-income areas, whose residents sometimes lack air conditioning, will become even more vulnerable to heat waves. Add enough trees to a block, though, and you can reduce its daytime temperature in the summer by up to 10 degrees.

Besides their cooling capacity, trees provide a myriad of other health benefits: They remove asthma-inducing pollutants from the air, lower the risk of respiratory diseases and skin cancer, and encourage residents to be more active, which can lower obesity rates. On a deeper level, researchers have linked a well-maintained tree canopy to lower stress levels and better psychological wellbeing.

SAFER NEIGHBORHOODS WITH STRONG COMMUNITY TIES

Trees — if they are well-cared for — can also make cities safer by lowering crime levels. They are a sign that people in the neighborhood care about where they live and are more likely to be in tune with their outdoor space, both which are deterrents to potential criminals. However, caring about your neighbor- hood is not always enough. Communities need the means to perform ongoing care and maintenance for their trees. But when achieved, it can create much stronger community ties.

“People in communities tend to walk more and interact more with people on their street,” said Quentin Turner, a community organizer for the Sierra Club’s Detroit branch. “They get to know their neighbors.”

ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

Perhaps more surprisingly, having more trees on your street can also be good for your bank account. They can reduce energy bills, for example. In urban and community areas in the continental U.S., trees save $4.7 billion in electricity use and $3.1 billion in heating use. And they can help prevent costly floods. This might have been the case in Ellicott City, Md., where after healthy tree canopy upstream was removed for development, the downtown was devastated by catastrophic flooding in both 2016 and 2018.

“Trees are very good at capturing stormwater,” said Turner, who manages a variety of green projects that reduce stormwater runoff in Detroit. “Their leaves and branches alone can catch so much rain, and they help bring that water down into the soil,” preventing it from overwhelming storm drains or pouring into people’s basements.

Since people tend to like living near green spaces, trees can also boost property values. Just ask Quincy Jones. Before Osborn gained its new trees and park, houses in the neighborhood “were selling for $15,000, $10,000. People were paying cash,” said Jones. But the greenery has beautified the area, and Jones and several of his friends have started buying and fixing up houses, then creating rent-to-own opportunities that are encouraging people to move back to Osborn. Last August, they sold a renovated house near the park for $55,000.

“We changed the cost in that area,” said Jones. “We’re in the process of doing five more units. And we always use the Outdoor Educational Center .”

The city neighborhoods that need trees the most also tend to be the neighborhoods with the highest unemployment rates. Ask Alex Smith about how trees have helped him, and he’ll talk about his career. In 2012, Smith, a Baltimore native, was trying to turn his life around after being in prison. But finding employment as an ex-convict was an uphill battle. For a while, Smith worked two jobs to make ends meet, sleeping in his car when he was too exhausted to make it home.

Eventually, Smith landed a position with the Baltimore Tree Trust, which works to restore urban forests and strengthen communities throughout the city. He steadily gained experience with the nonprofit and now directs its operations and community outreach. Smith also helped them launch an apprenticeship program in tree care and landscaping techniques. Now, he’s starting his own urban landscaping business to create more opportunities like the one that made such a difference for him.

“I just want my work to translate into more jobs,” Smith said. “We could really have one of the most beautiful green cities in the country because we definitely have the workforce. We just need to tap into it and make that connection.”

The whole country needs to make that connection. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that urban forestry will see a 10 percent increase in job openings for entry-level positions, such as tree trimmers and pruners, over the next decade. If urban forestry groups can find employees within the neighborhoods they’re serving, they’ll be adding not just trees to those areas, but livelihoods.

Lastly, urban trees are a climate tool. By reducing air conditioning use and other energy outputs, they lower greenhouse gas emissions. City trees make up 17 percent of the country’s carbon sink — and could capture even more carbon if cities increase their tree canopy cover. And they shield residents from extreme heat, floods and other weather events linked to climate change. For lower-income communities, which are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, added protection is critical.

HELPING TO SPREAD TREE CANOPY

To help cities across the U.S. bring trees and their many benefits to all urban residents, American Forests has adopted a comprehensive, multi-level approach. It’s an approach that aims to transform not only urban forests, but also public perception of them: why they matter and who they’re for.

“We don’t just drop into a community, plant some trees and leave,” said Anderson. “We help with the entire picture.”

That work starts with helping public officials and urban planners simply understand what Tree Equity is and how to achieve it. For example, American Forests has teamed up with the state of Rhode Island to develop a suite of different planning tools and resources that can help all their municipalities work toward Tree Equity. One such tool is the Tree Equity Score, a rubric that combines information about a city’s tree canopy, climate projections and public health data to help focus resources in neighborhoods currently underserved by tree canopy. The methodology for creating a score will be available for use nationwide after it is completed for the Rhode Island project.

In the meantime, city leaders anywhere can use the Vibrant Cities Lab. The platform — which American Forests created with the U.S. Forest Service and National Association of Regional Councils — features such things as action guides, case studies, research and a self-assessment tool to help city planners and others develop and improve their urban forestry programs.

While trees can ultimately save money for cities and their residents, urban forestry programs need more funding to be effective. American Forests is, therefore, helping develop new finance mechanisms such as City Forest Credits.

“This exciting new voluntary carbon market resembles the traditional carbon credit model, where companies and others can mitigate their emissions by purchasing credits,” said Ian Leahy, vice president of urban forestry at American Forests. “Only this time, they’re purchasing credits that can be put toward planting, maintaining and protecting city trees, which research shows have the most impact.”

To that point, these unique “carbon+” credits quantify not just the trees’ carbon storage capacity, but also their ability to trap rain, reduce air pollution and save energy.

On the job front, American Forests is working to make sure that urban forestry programs create career opportunities in the communities they’re serving. American Forests launched a new Career Pathways initiative, for example, with the help of funding from the JPB Foundation and Bank of America. The initiative connects urban forestry job-training programs with tree care employers, facilitating increased matriculation into entry-level jobs like tree trimming and pruning.

And of course, alongside the education, advocacy and career programs American Forests is using to advance Tree Equity, there’s planting actual trees — to the tune of more than a dozen plantings annually in different U.S. cities, such as Miami, Boston and Houston.

Quincy Jones says he’s seen many results spark in Osborn through the green development there — particularly through the Outdoor Educational Center, which has become a place to hold parades, parties and other community activities.

“If you’re thinking about transforming your neighborhood, green space is a good way to start because you can get a lot of engagement,” said Jones. “Because who doesn’t want to see a beautiful community? No matter what the income level is, everybody wants to be around something beautiful and clean.”

For more information, research and sources, visit vibrantcitieslab.com.

Sarah Wade is a freelance environmental writer based in central Virginia. She previously spent five years writing for World Wildlife, the quarterly magazine of World Wildlife Fund.

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The post American Forests + Tree Equity appeared first on American Forests.

A MAP of tree cover in virtually any city in America is also a map of income and, in many cases, race in ways that transcend income. That means that our cities’ tree inequities are worsening other societal inequities, starting with public health. America urgently needs Tree Equity.

Why? Because having trees in your neighborhood is a life-or-death matter.

Neighborhoods with little to no trees can, on average, be 5 to 7 degrees hotter during the day and up to 22 degrees hotter at night than neighbor- hoods with good tree cover. Treeless neighborhoods also have worse air pollution because trees trap air pollutants and the hotter temperatures in these treeless neighborhoods help cook air pollutants into dangerous smog.

That’s one of the reasons why health experts project a ten-fold increase in heat-related deaths across America’s cities. In Dallas, for example, a recent American Forests study showed potential to reduce heat-related deaths 22 percent by planting more trees and better protecting existing tree cover, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

Achieving Tree Equity means that all neighborhoods within a city will reach a citywide standard of tree cover that is feasible and appropriate for each city’s unique climate and context. Given the immense consequences, American Forests sees Tree Equity as a moral imperative, offering a litmus test of our nation’s commitment to its ideals. This work is also an opportunity for greater economic equity because we can link people in marginalized communities into career opportunities, advancing Tree Equity across their neighborhoods and beyond.

Hopefully, based on American Forests’ work over the last year, this call to action feels familiar to you. During that time, we have launched a new national initiative to deliver Tree Equity across American cities. Right now, most cities fall short of this ideal. But we are seeing huge signs of progress and new commitment, including:

New visibility for Tree Equity: For too long, urban forests have felt virtually invisible in the media, especially when discussing climate change and other big issues. Not anymore. In just the last six months, the concept of Tree Equity, and its role in issues like climate response, have gotten major treatment from National Public Radio, New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Grist, Reuters, The Guardian, The Economist and many other influential outlets. American Forests has helped to feed this increased coverage by working with reporters, placing opinion pieces and driving social media through #TreeEquity. This increased visibility and awareness is translating into real action, such as mayors committing to Tree Equity and state and federal officials looking for ways to help.

Cities and states step up for Tree Equity: In Detroit, American Forests works with city agencies and local nonprofits to dramatically scale the city’s commitment to tree planting and tree care through the Detroit Reforestation Initiative. In Phoenix, we have formed a new long-term partnership with one of America’s most heat-vulnerable cities. At the state level, under the leadership of Governor Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island is partnering with American Forests on a push for Tree Equity across every city in the state. This comprehensive effort is demonstrating what city leaders and their partners can accomplish when fully backed with strong technical tools, funding and coordination.

Federal commitment to Tree Equity: After an intensive push with Congress, we have secured the first major increase in Urban and Community Forestry Program funding in more than a decade. But, this is just the beginning. We have helped introduce new legislation, the Climate Steward- ship Act, that would fund planting 400 million trees in cities through 2050, create a new urban wood grant program, and establish a Stewardship Corps to train underserved youth for careers in urban forestry. We are also helping to introduce the TREES Act, which will invest Department of Energy funding into tree planting as an energy efficiency strategy.

Career pathways in Tree Equity: For a year, American Forests has been connecting with people and organizations around the country doing soul-stirring work to leverage economic equity through Tree Equity, such as programs that link people coming out of incarceration into urban forest careers. To help feed this important movement, American Forests just launched a Career Pathways Toolkit with new mechanisms and best practices for these kinds of employment programs.

With your continued support of American Forests, we can make Tree Equity a must-have for all cities and provide the resources and partnership to make it happen. In this issue, you will learn much more about Tree Equity and new ways that you can get involved. Let’s create Tree Equity together.

For more news and updates from Jad, follow him on Twitter @JadDaley.

The post Offshoots: New Momentum for Tree Equity appeared first on American Forests.

SHREDDING A SWEAT-DRENCHED guitar solo before thousands of ecstatic fans. Inspecting tree bark for signs of resistance to an invasive insect.

It’s hard to imagine two things that, at first glance, have less in common.

But, in fact, they have much in common. Insects that damage or kill trees ruin the wood that musicians depend on — the wood from species that are used to make guitars and other instruments.

That’s why American Forests began working with researchers at the U.S. Forest Service and Fender Musical Instruments to begin building resilient and thriving forests in the eastern United States. According to Mike Born, director of wood technology at Fender Musical Instruments, it’s work that is important for securing the future of their product.

“We see several challenges for the future of ash guitars, due to the destruction caused by the emerald ash borer (EAB),” says Born. “Ash has been a staple for Fender guitars for 70 years and has been the genesis of a lot of great music over the years. Through this project, we are taking steps to cultivate EAB-resistant ash varieties, so we can still build ash guitars 60 to 70 years in the future!”

GROWING GENETIC GOLD

The fittingly named Roots of Rock initia- tive begins with boots on the ground in national, state and private forests to find trees that faced the full brunt of an infes- tation or disease — in this case, emerald ash borer — but, yet, survived. The genetics of these particular specimens allow them to persevere despite the same brutal attacks that have killed hundreds of millions of other ash trees.

Once these trees are identified, scientists at the U.S. Forest Service conduct testing to confirm their resistance. For those that pass, shoots of new growth and seeds are collected to capture that genetic fortitude.

It can be a complicated process, given that populations of trees adapt specifically to their local bioregion. The genetics that thrive in one area might be inert just a couple of hundred miles away. So, the process needs to be replicated over and over again across the landscape. One exception to this situation is in urban forests, including street and landscape trees, where genetic diversity is not as critical because the trees are typically planted and not expected to be a self-sustaining population over many generations.

Once the seeds and shoots are gathered, the Roots of Rock team begins breeding and testing new pest-resistant trees. This can occur through seed orchards, nurseries, clone propagation or progeny testing, whereby the genetic information of the resistant candidate comes from its offspring, as opposed to the tree itself.

Then, it’s time to propagate those trees at scale. Cue American Forests and its track record of working with the U.S. Forest Service, local nonprofits and hundreds of corporate partners to plant 60 million trees over the last 30 years. We will build off of that experience to plant thousands upon thousands of improved seedlings that will restore the health of impacted natural and urban forest lands.

“THEY SAY THE HEART OF ROCK AND ROLL IS IN CLEVELAND”

We have kicked off this work by embedding an American Forests forest health expert in The Holden Arboretum outside Cleveland through the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, in partnership with the U.S Forest Service. There’s a certain poetic lyricism to the fact that the partners have chosen this as the starting place. This region is home to the pulsing industrial heart of the nation that has generated so many musicians over the decades, from the likes of rock and roll in Cleveland to Motown, garage rock and techno in Detroit.

In fact, minutes from the Third Man Records store created by native Detroit rock legend Jack White (perhaps best known for his work in The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and sports stadium loudspeakers around the world), Roots of Rock is installing the project’s first 20 emerald ash borer resistant ash trees. They will grow in a new vacant lands nursery American Forests has spearheaded development of as part of a broader redevelopment of the abandoned Herman Kiefer Medical Center and surrounding neighborhood.

This “ground zero” for ash species restoration is particularly fitting because it was through the Port of Detroit that emerald ash borer first entered the United States in 2002 from Asia.

Jennifer Koch, Ph.D. research biolo-gist at the U.S. Forest Service’s Northern Research Station in Delaware, Ohio, sees this multi-sector collaboration as a critical step in advancing forest health solutions not only in the Great Lakes but also nationwide.

“It is my hope that using ash as a model, we will demonstrate the value of breeding programs to harness naturally occurring resistance to combat the invasive insects and diseases that threaten our native tree species,” says Koch. “In addition, the networks, collaborations and infrastructure we will build through this partnership will position us to more efficiently respond to other pests currently threatening our forests and prepare us to respond quickly to new threats that may arise in the future.”

As Roots of Rock grows, it will expand beyond the afflictions of ash into propagating resistance to beech bark disease and hemlock woolly adelgid. The result will not only be healthier, more resilient forests, but American companies, such as Fender Musical Instruments, that rely on specific North American species will also be able to continue serving future generations of shredders and pickers.

Ian Leahy writes from Washington, D.C., and is American Forests’ vice president of urban forestry.

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THERE ARE TIMES when, by fortune and fortitude, a single project embodies what American Forests seeks to achieve in cities — which begins with creating partnerships, includes funding to implement science-based plans and policies, and culminates in expanding tree cover within communities that have the fewest trees. Such was the case one Wednesday morning in Delaware last year.

More than 60 people in the mid-sized city of Wilmington were in an all-hands- on-deck fight to save lives. They were planting trees— fruit trees and other species — in a public park. Their hope was that the trees would cool the city, support career training and more. It was hard work, but much needed in Wilmington, where trees cover only 20 percent of the city and are decreasing in number as temperatures rise.

One of those leading this charge was Herbert White, urban forest administrator for Wilmington, who understands that trees are beneficial from an economic, environmental and aesthetic standpoint. Through White and his staff, the city is putting money and expertise behind this important acknowledgment.

But they can’t do it alone. A successful urban forestry program requires a strong anchor institution that can advocate, engage diverse communities, plant trees across property owner- ships, and attract diverse funding, according to the urban forestry toolkit on VibrantCitiesLab.com. In Wilmington and beyond, the Delaware Center for Horticulture fulfills this role.

Participants in the center’s Branches to Chances program were at the event in full force, training leaders and offering tips to the volunteer tree planters. The 10-year-old program is one of Delaware’s only green jobs training programs for unemployed, underemployed and previously incarcerated men and women. Graduates finish the program with market- able skills in a growing industry, the satisfaction of improving the communities they come from, and essential employer references. The program helps address a need in the city to create jobs, particularly in neighborhoods of color, where unemployment rates tend to be higher.

None of this would have happened without corporate support. Step- ping up to the challenge and helping to make the day a success was JPMorgan Chase, whose Card Services division is headquartered in Wilmington. Not only did the company contribute funding to buy the trees, but about 50 of their employees came out into their community to volunteer at the planting.

The bustle also attracted a number of nearby residents who joined the effort to improve their neighborhood.

It’s this type of cross-sector collaboration that makes urban forestry unique. Unlike other basic city infrastructure, such as bridges and streetlights, everyone can literally have a hand in expanding tree cover in a city and, in turn, growing a community.

Ian Leahy writes from Washington, D.C., and is American Forests’ vice president of urban forestry.

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ONE BY ONE, hundreds of grade school children stepped out of the school buses that had just rolled down the dirt road to La Sal del Rey. They were ready for — and excited about — a day of planting trees in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas on a sunny day in October.

It was the 26th annual Rio Reforestation, a now four-day event that attracts nearly 1,500 people — all of whom are committed to creating a forest that will serve as a place where the ocelot and other rare and threatened wildlife can find food, shelter and mates.

Through this U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-led event, nearly 292,000 trees and shrubs have been planted on 783 acres of land over the years. Approximately 12,000 additional trees and shrubs went into the ground last fall, thanks to the hard work of the school children, American Forests staff and others from the community. Baby-bonnet. Torchwood. Snake eyes. These are just some of the colorful names for the sub- tropical trees and shrubs they planted.

Together, these volunteers are recreating the thornscrub forest that used to dominate the landscape in the Valley, as locals call it, which lies just north of the United States’ border with Mexico. The landscape started changing — to large ranches and associated livestock businesses — in the mid-1800s.

In the early 1900s, farm development promoters then singled out the region for intensified production. From then on, the region’s future became inextricably linked to irrigated agriculture. This led to the Valley being transformed wholesale into a network of fields and canals. Similar scenarios were also playing out in the western U.S.

By the 1970s, 90 percent of the Valley’s thornscrub forest was gone, replaced with citrus and row crops. Consequently, many populations of wildlife became isolated in forest fragments while others, like the jaguar, were lost.

Fast forward another generation.

The 1994 enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement forever changed the Valley’s fortunes once again. The resulting trade increase with Mexico, the rise of a strong service sector, and continued immigration catalyzed an urbanization trend that has come to dominate the region on every level. Working landscapes themselves are now quickly being displaced in favor of residential development and associated infrastructure.

More recently, additional challenges to wildlife conservation have come in the form of physical barriers erected right along the Rio Grande itself to discourage illegal immigration. These “border wall” segments discourage species dispersal and effectively isolate many protected areas even further in what has become “no-man’s land” — the zone between the wall and river.

American Forests has provided funding and technical assistance to plant 2 million trees in the Valley and, currently, is leading the development of a comprehensive restoration plan there.

Through events like Rio Reforestation, which American Forests sponsors, members of this expanding community are empowered to play their part in restoring the forest. The mosaic of Rio Reforestation plantings and associated biodiversity are an interwoven testament to both the Valley’s people and American Forests’ commitment to developing a strong partnership with them on this unique frontera.

Jon Dale writes from Elsa, Texas and is American Forests’ senior manager for forest restoration in the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

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NEARLY 100 TRAVELERS employees broke out their boots and jeans on a brisk morning in October, all to bring the company one step closer to reaching its ambitious goal of planting 1 million trees across America by Earth Day 2020.

They dug holes, tamped down the soil to get air pockets out, gently placed young trees in the holes, then mulched — many times over. In a few years, the 40 trees they planted in a public park in Hartford, Conn., will be mature enough to help purify the air residents breathe, cool the park on hot days, absorb water to avoid flooding, and so much more. And, as a bonus, some of the trees will produce apples that will be there for the picking.

It’s with leadership from companies like Travelers that America can continue to be home to healthy and resilient forests. The company’s partnership with American Forests began when Travelers executives wanted to offset carbon emissions generated by travel to a conference. In the first three years, the company funded the planting of 30,000 trees. Then, in April 2019, Travelers pledged to fund the planting of a tree for every Travelers customer who chooses paperless billing — up to 1 million trees in all.

“What we are seeing is that our customers are eager for simple steps, like going paperless, that they can take to help save America’s forests,” said Michael Klein, executive vice president and president of personal insurance at Travelers. “Our employees are also excited about this initiative, and the tree planting event in Hartford was an ideal opportunity to make a direct impact in the community where many of us live and work.”

Lindsey Putz writes from Washington, D.C., and is American Forests’ director of corporate giving.

The post Partner Profile: Travelers appeared first on American Forests.

LEX SANT cuts to the chase. “Trees are awesome.”

It’s that simple. It’s why he and his family love the forested park near their home in Washington, D.C. And it’s why he believes so strongly that the world’s forests should be abundant and healthy.

Sant is president of the Sant Foundation, created in 2015 as a sister foundation to The Summit Foundation to, among other things, find solutions to mitigating and adapting to climate change. He and his two colleagues there can jump into action quickly — speed he believes is desperately needed to contend with what he refers to as an existential threat to our planet.

“We need high impact, low cost solutions to climate change, and we need them as soon as possible,” Sant said. “Given the amount of carbon that forests sequester, they are one of the best nature-based solutions we have.”

Sant was an early believer in nature-based solutions. Examples of these solutions in action were right in front of him when he was a teenager in the 1980s. The company his father, Roger, helped to start, The AES Corporation, spent $2 million in planting 52 million trees in Guatemala — all to offset emissions from the power plant their company operated in Connecticut. Back then, few corporations were putting money behind large scale forest restoration, much less an entire year’s profits.

The Sant Foundation is also at the forefront of innovative approaches to forest conservation. It was one of the first funders of American Forests’ work with the U.S. Climate Alliance — an unprecedented group of 25 governors committed to addressing climate change. The Alliance, aims to tamp down climate change pollution in these states by at least 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

“There’s tremendous momentum within this group that cannot and should not stop,” Sant said. The foundation also supports American Forests’ work to ensure that there are trees in every part of every city. “It is hard to imagine any plan for cities that does not include a healthy dose of trees.”

Jill Schwartz writes from Washington, D.C., and is American Forests’ vice president of marketing and communications.

The post Donor Profile: Lex Sant appeared first on American Forests.

Eric Candela, Senior Manager of Community ReLeaf

CELL PHONE IN HAND, Jason Sencharles walked through the streets of the Boston suburb of Roxbury on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in July. Not an unusual sight, especially given that Jason is a teenager. But what was out of the ordinary was that Jason wasn’t using his phone to make a call or send a text message. He was using it to record measurements of street trees. He carefully recorded data about the species, age and health of trees in city tree pits and then typed the information into his phone.

Jason was one of nine high school students from across Boston’s racial and socio-economic spectrum that was being paid to help Speak for the Trees Boston conduct a tree inventory in Roxbury and Dorchester. Over a period of seven weeks, they collected species and size data for more than 3,800 trees and identified 600 vacant tree pits that are candidates for new trees.

This information will help the City of Boston’s ongoing efforts to monitor and maintain the city’s tree canopy. That’s important, given the critical role of urban trees in purifying the air, cooling neighborhoods and more.

What is even more important, though, is the experience Jason and his peers had that day. They earned some money. But they, too, had an opportunity to learn about trees and get connected to their community, which means they are more likely to become advocates for building a healthy tree canopy in Boston and, perhaps, beyond.

“Prior to having this job, I didn’t know how important trees are in the city,” Sencharles said. “Now that I’ve had this experience, I’ll always have a lot more appreciation for the trees that are all around us.”

Eric Candela writes from Detroit and is American Forests’ senior manager of Community ReLeaf.

The post From the Field: Boston appeared first on American Forests.

Jennifer Broome, Vice President of Philanthropy

COMPANIES in the United States play an important role in restoring America’s forests — and many are already leading by example. That was the main message from American Forests President and CEO Jad Daley when he moderated a discussion at the recent VERGE Carbon conference.

“With the products they are creating and the way they operate their businesses,” companies can make a big difference, Daley told the crowd of corporate sustainability leaders from across the country.

He provided examples of how Travelers, Clif Bar, Bank of America and other companies work with American Forests to plant trees, fund the development of data-driven action plans for creating urban forests, and more. Leaders from Microsoft and United Airlines talked about how their companies are innovating around ways to incorporate forest restoration into broader sustainability goals, including driving down their carbon emissions.

This type of work is critical, given that forests and forest products absorb and sequester approximately 15 per- cent of our country’s CO2 emissions, making them one of the most effective nature-based solutions to addressing climate change.

This was the first VERGE conference, an annual event, solely focused on unlocking the value of carbon by sequestering it and using it to create innovative products, materials and services. American Forests co-sponsored the conference, as we want to ensure trees and forests are front and center in that conversation.

We walked the talk by hosting a tree planting event during the conference. In partnership with Urban ReLeaf, Clif Bar and several conference attendees, we planted 20 trees in the city of Oak- land, Calif. The sycamore, gingkoes and Chinese pistashe trees will absorb carbon and help create Tree Equity in the city.

Jennifer Broome writes from Washington, D.C., and is American Forests’ vice president of philanthropy.

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