San Francisco volunteers and the District 3 supervisor got together last week at Francisco Middle School to celebrate Arbor Day by planting trees and putting together eco-friendly fair games.
This year the Community Clean Team and Public Works department focused on cleaning up North Beach and Chinatown by tidying up alleyways, removing graffiti and helping the air quality through providing more space for plants.
The event took place on March 19, 2016 from the early morning to the late afternoon. District 3 Supervisor Aaron Peskin said the celebration was a positive and fun way to bring the community together and maintain the urban forest to provide cleaner air.
There are always two signature trees, a cork oak and a coast live oak, that are planted in honor of two San Francisco residents that made an impact in their communities before they died, according to the San Francisco Environment website. This year the residents were Irene Cresio, an advocate for the Portola District, and Dr. Espanola Jackson who helped his Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood with social and environmental justice.
The planting of trees, even if it is just a few trees a year, has never been more crucial to San Francisco, which has one of the lowest tree densities in the U.S. according the Department of Agriculture. The USDA’s Urban Forest Summary from 2007 recorded that trees only cover 11.9 percent of San Francisco, when it should be more than twice that in order to maintain healthy air quality.
The reason for the lack of trees in San Francisco lies with the Bureau of Forestry, the city’s ample rules and regulations for planting trees and the minimal space that is available to plant more trees, said Remy Hummer from Arborist Now. Arborist Now is an urban forestry and landscape service company in San Francisco whose main goal is to encourage residents of San Francisco to look past the inconveniences that trees bring up and abandon the idea that it does not make any sense to plant trees in such an urban area. These inconveniences include how expensive it is to plant trees, roots that break up sidewalks and streets, safety issues with pedestrians and cars and so on.
Hummer believes that the pros out-weigh the cons and the general public has no idea about the importance of trees. Not only do they soak up CO2 emissions, but they create a sound barrier on busy streets to make the city a quieter place and they provide privacy in backyards and frontyards which is especially beneficial for people that live in small, cramped spaces. There are emotional ramifications to cutting down a tree and having different plants on one’s property forces them to think creatively about the space they live in, said Hummer.
EveryTreeSF, the city-wide organization that has set out to plot all the trees in San Francisco on a map and come up with new locations to plant more trees, was involved in this most recent Arbor Day Fair. “Street trees contribute to a more walkable, livable and sustainable city,” said John Rahaim, director of planning, “The information collected through EveryTreeSF will help us provide the proper care they deserve.”
The Arbor Day Fair had family games that donated money to San Francisco’s ecosystem and a petting zoo with goats. Also there was face painting, live music and carnival-type games with prizes. The event set out to remove graffiti in Quincy Alley, beautify Washington Square Park by cleaning up litter, sweep the leaves on Hyde Street and refresh street furniture on Stockton.
The Clean Team of the Arbor Day Fair was able to recruit about 200 schoolchildren to plant 43 trees around the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center.
“Trees help clear our air, they catch storm water and sequester carbon and there is good evidence that they reduce crime in urban areas,” said Carla Short of the San Francisco Department of Public Works.
As a result of this opportunity for community volunteers to connect to one another, eco-friendly programs and projects have gained recognition. One of which is SCRAP, or the Scroungers Center for Reusable Art Parts, that showcased their goals to help the urban forest by recycling art parts and making new art.
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