“City trees are not just having a moment. In many ways, this is more than a moment in the sun. This is, I believe, the new normal,” said Dan Lambe, chief executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. Lambe said the massive federal investment recognizes trees are essential for communities, “not just a nice-to-have, they’re a must-have.”
“I just drive around the state, I drive around Hartford, I see places where — imagine if we had just 30 trees in this empty lot — what it means for clean air, what it means for beauty, what it means for shade,” said the Democrat, referring to Connecticut's capital city, where there's tree canopy in just a quarter of its 11,490 acres.
Marshall said the pandemic, coupled with the racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, brought a lot of attention to the tree canopy inequity issue. Many cities and towns are now using adeveloped by American Forests to target tree plantings in neighborhoods most in need. Some communities plan to use the federal funds for tree maintenance and to develop a tree care workforce, especially in places where workers have barriers to employment, such as a criminal record. Joel Pannell, vice president of Urban Forest Policy at American Forests, said the nation's current tree care labor pool is aging and needs more workers. It's also dominated by mostly white men.
The cost of Biden's tree-planting program has received some political pushback from lawmakers who've likened it to pork-barrel spending. Lora Martens, the urban tree program manager in Phoenix’s Office of Heat Response and Mitigation, acknowledged the amount of available money is “kind of wild." But she predicted it will have “a significant impact” on Phoenix — considered the hottest large city in the U.S. — and the surrounding metro area.
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