What are your town's tree worth?
By Evelyn Alemanni
In my garden, I have macadamia trees, five kinds of oranges, tangerines, tangelos, lemons, limes, plums and more. I know that my trees are giving me juice, fruit, nuts, and healthy snacks all year long. When I plant a tree, I consider the tangible things it will give me - flowers, fruit, foliage for flower arrangements.
But what about the trees in your community - a resource so often taken for granted - did you ever consider what they're giving you? Ok, we've all heard about the work trees do with carbon sequestration, we know about the value of shade in reducing the cost of and need for air conditioning, the value of the wood, and so on. To help cities quantify these benefits, Davey Tree and the US Forest Service have developed software called i-Tree which can be downloaded at no cost from itreetools.org.
One AIB city, Bloomington, Indiana, used i-Tree to calculate the economic benefits provided by its city trees. It was quite an eye-opener for residents to learn that their trees were working, for free, to provide literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in services each year.
Used in conjunction with the city's tree inventory database, the city decided to do one more exciting and important thing: plant a community fruit orchard to complement the community garden. Great idea!
Look at the trees around you. What are they adding to your life? Do you know anyone or anything else that works so hard to improve the environment?
In my garden, I have macadamia trees, five kinds of oranges, tangerines, tangelos, lemons, limes, plums and more. I know that my trees are giving me juice, fruit, nuts, and healthy snacks all year long. When I plant a tree, I consider the tangible things it will give me - flowers, fruit, foliage for flower arrangements.
But what about the trees in your community - a resource so often taken for granted - did you ever consider what they're giving you? Ok, we've all heard about the work trees do with carbon sequestration, we know about the value of shade in reducing the cost of and need for air conditioning, the value of the wood, and so on. To help cities quantify these benefits, Davey Tree and the US Forest Service have developed software called i-Tree which can be downloaded at no cost from itreetools.org.
One AIB city, Bloomington, Indiana, used i-Tree to calculate the economic benefits provided by its city trees. It was quite an eye-opener for residents to learn that their trees were working, for free, to provide literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in services each year.
Used in conjunction with the city's tree inventory database, the city decided to do one more exciting and important thing: plant a community fruit orchard to complement the community garden. Great idea!
Look at the trees around you. What are they adding to your life? Do you know anyone or anything else that works so hard to improve the environment?
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