#BLTrees June: Equity and Access to Trees

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We'll wrap up today with our June Check-In with BLTrees, our year-long project to follow the life of a tree. Did you pick a tree yet? You still can. Through the four seasons looking at and learning about the trees around us, what they do for and to us, and what we do for, and to them. New York City and the surrounding area have millions of trees. Obviously, we hope you pick that one to follow this year and have been tweeting us a photo each month using the #BLTrees.

Today we're going to talk about trees and equity. Back with us is our guide for this whole adventure, urban ecologist, Marielle Anzelone, founder of New York City wildflower week, who proposed this project and has offered her expertise and putting it together every month. Hello again, Marielle.

Marielle Anzelone: Hello, Brian. Good morning.

Brian Lehrer: Today, she's joined by Charles Nilon, a professor in the University of Missouri's School of Natural Resources, where he studies the intersection of cities and nature with an eye to how socioeconomic forces influence access to green spaces. Professor Nilon, welcome to WNYC.

Charles Nilon: Good morning, Brian. Please call me Charlie.

Brian Lehrer: I will do that. Marielle, we've asked everyone to pick their tree to follow this year. One outside their windows, in their backyards, or a tree that's caught their attention on their way through the park or the neighborhood and get to know it. My tree, the pear tree that's near my building. I don't see much difference from May when it grew all its leaves to June right now. Should we be seeing things that are different from a month ago?

Marielle Anzelone: Yes, that's a great question. The differences might be subtle in looking at my tree, I have a Pin Oak and I noticed that the difference from last month to this month is maybe the length of individual leaves and the color. The shade of green of the leaves on my tree has gotten darker and deeper. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Darker and darker.

Marielle Anzelone: What that means is that also while the amount of the green, the chlorophyll has increased, the biochemistry of the leaves has also changed. For example, in my Oak tree, Oak leaves are known to be high in tannic acid, which does a number of things, but it also wards off herbivores, especially caterpillars. Caterpillars that are timed to be born and eat leaves early on in the stage of the Oak leaf won't hit as many tannic acids. Caterpillars that are born too late and missed that window, the higher tannic acid really keeps them from eating the Oak leaves. The Oak leaves are happy, but the caterpillars aren't. That's a really important connection, and it's not something we would really see, but that's happening there.

Brian Lehrer: Very hungry caterpillars if they're climbing up Oak trees. Do the leaves keep getting darker and longer after June, or is this it?

Marielle Anzelone: This is mostly it. This tends to be where we are through the rest of the growing season. For some trees, it might be that they do leaf out a little bit late and they'll still be growing, but overall, we've hit our maximum.

Brian Lehrer: Charlie, can you talk a little bit about your search, especially how socioeconomic forces affect the trees we encounter as we move through the neighborhoods where we live and work?

Charles Nilon: Sure. Well, a lot of my work deals with trying to understand how people living in different neighborhoods experience nature every day. In terms of trees, that might mean what kind of vegetation they see, what kind of trees they see, the street trees, the trees in their yard, the trees behind their house or building, and all those different spaces, say, within a mile before they'll even see trees.

I particularly look at not just trees, but also the animals that use those trees because I study birds and squirrels and some other kinds of species that actually are found in trees. I'm interested in how things like race and income and level of education and all those things that differentiate where people live in the city influence what kind of trees and what kind of nature people experience every day.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about trees in the context of environmental justice and equity, what are we mainly talking about that there are fewer trees in poorer neighborhoods or about the upkeep of parks and other green spaces, neighborhood to neighborhood. Is that what you were searching?

Charles Nilon: Yes. I think both those things. I think one question is what are the species? Where are different species found? How might those species differ? How do things like canopy cover differ among neighborhoods, say, between wealthy neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods or neighborhoods where people of color live versus predominantly white neighborhoods. Things like what kind of nature people have access to in parks as it is. Are there trees in parks, no trees, grass, things like that, and how do those differ with people based on, again, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race?

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for our guests in this month's edition of BLTrees. Who takes care of the trees on your street? That's a question we thought we might throw out there today in the context of trees and equity. Who takes care of the trees on your street? 212-433 WNYC. If you've picked a tree in a public space that you're following as part of this project or if you just know a tree that you like in a public space, is there someone who waters it in the summer or cares for it in any other way? Is it the parks department in New York City or whatever your town is, or is it your property and your responsibility?

212-433 WNYC, who takes care of the trees in your life? 212-433-9692, especially in public spaces, or tweet at Brian Lehrer. Marielle, the million trees initiative in New York City that dates from 2007 under Mayor Bloomberg planting a million trees was done with an eye toward equity, right?

Marielle Anzelone: Well, yes and no. Originally when it was conceived, it was thought to be really an engine for addressing climate. The thought was just about carbon sequestration and thinking about that kind of data. As the program grew and matured and expanded, then equity has definitely been a lens through which they're assessing the work that they do. Yes. I also think to say, I love that this is coming after a discussion on Juneteenth because this is such an important thing to be talking about in New York City. Especially in relation to the neighborhoods that have, and don't have, so this is such great, great timing.

Brian Lehrer: Charlie, what are some of the factors that go into the unequal access to nature and the presence of trees in particular? I notice this all the time, if I'm walking, and I'm not talking about just blocks in the city or wherever that might have private homes with yards and are more tree-lined. Even from one city block that's apartment buildings to another city block that's apartment buildings, it seems like the more affluent the neighborhood, the more trees there are going to be alongside those apartments buildings, and the less affluent, the fewer trees. Am I making that up?

Charles Nilon: No, I think that's a very good observation. What a lot of the research on this really talks about is that it's access to power and access to resources that really seem to determine not just where there's single homes and trees, but like you talked about, just different apartment blocks. The questions you raised about who takes care of the tree, who waters it, those kinds of things often are tied in to, say, where there might be, say, where a neighbors association, I'm sorry, or tenant association might pay for someone to manage the trees or where the folks who live in that apartment block know who to call to get the city to come out to maintain the trees.

The same thing with private spaces, the fact that often public spaces in wealthier neighborhoods and often in white neighborhoods, often people have access to resources that say will help set up a foundation that manages trees in the park, or that maintains vegetation in the park. Whereas in a poor neighborhood, people just don't have those resources and depend on the City to do it. They're often maybe the last group to really get those city services, so you definitely are seeing a pattern that's real.

Brian Lehrer: How do you fix that?

Charles Nilon: I think there are a couple of things. I think one thing is to really work on engaging communities more. I think that there are examples of cities where the forestry department, the parks department have intentionally tried to work with communities directly and try to figure out what resources do they need to help them maintain trees, help them really work more effectively in providing trees and parks.

Going back probably almost 40 years ago, there was a big study in Oakland, California that looked exactly at that, where they looked at what are the steps really needed to maintain trees in neighborhoods? What do they have to do? Those range from the direct connection with who plants the trees, to how they engage people to take care of the trees, how they really assess what's needed to make sure trees survive? I think that direct engagement of neighborhoods is really important.

Brian Lehrer: I think we have a couple of community pruners calling in. Here is Marta in Jackson Heights. Marta, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Marta: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for taking my call because I'm really excited about this. I think I just took my test the day before yesterday, I just got my citizen pruner license. Here in Jackson Heights, we have our own beautification group for mostly at our historic district. I'm doing the work and got on all the mailing lists for them, and that Citizen Pruners through Trees New York. They're a great organization. I'd say it's started by [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: No, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Marta: It's Trees New York.

Brian Lehrer: Started by, say it again because I interrupted you.

Marta: I'm not sure, and I don't want to say the wrong person. I think I might be confusing it with a different group.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, no. Oh, okay. Well, let me ask you this, what's involved in getting a citizen pruner's license? I didn't realize there was a licensing procedure.

Marta: There is, and because the New York City Parks Department has jurisdiction over the street trees that you see in the little batches on the sidewalk. It's a class with a master arborist, with Trees New York, and it's just a lot of education on trees, tree identification, because different trees grow different ways, and their root systems also grow differently. You know which trees need more space to grow like the honey locust has a really intense root system. We do all that, and then they show us how to properly prune the trees, how to take the branches that are going to be on the sidewalk, hitting people in the face.

Also on the street side, when you have trucks coming up, and that damage, things get broken, cause a lot of stress to the tree. I really want to do this. To your other point about equality, me and some people in my group and in the neighborhood, I live on the end of the neighborhood that's turning more immigrants. We've started working on a couple of tree gardens in the beds in the neighborhood that's a little bit less affluent, very heavily new immigrants, East Elmhurst, New York.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for that report from Jackson Heights and in East Elmhurst. Let's go to Fabrizio in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hello, Fabrizio.

Fabrizio: Hi, Brian, nice to hear you. There's different things. We had, for instance, our building in my block, that they renovated and constructed, and they never got trees like for seven months. Finally, they came a crew of 60 persons to plant the two trees, we're very happy about it. They even brought a big tank of water to pouring water into it but from then on, it's more the community, the blocks that we have, our green thumb. That has helped to build not only the plants and the bulbs and the flowers but to bring all together, people be chatting in the chat of there's a light bulb broken and everyone's taking care of the thing.

The Parks Department gave us a thing for connecting the hose to the hydrant, and we can water the trees from there too. It's a mix. It's a community effort, but it's also the city providing us with something.

Brian Lehrer: That's so interesting, Charlie, it's really a public-private partnership.

Charles Nilon: Yes, it definitely is. It definitely is. I think they touched on two really important things. There are a lot of programs there, which are out there, the master gardener programs, I think the city certified arborist program and I know Cornell extension has Master Gardener and Master Naturalist. All these different kinds of programs people plug into but it really does take a connection even beyond that, to really make that final connection with what happens on the blog, I think like the last we mentioned.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle, do you have any of your nature walks coming up in the city soon, tree-oriented or other?

Marielle Anzelone: I do. I just wanted to say though really quickly in terms of equity what Charlie was saying is so critical that the public-private partnership happens in wealthier neighborhoods. That's why the parks department's budget is so critical because neighborhoods that can't afford to have conservancies then really rely on the city to bring the dollars to help them maintain the parks and trees that they do have. Then relatedly, yes, we have free tree works going on. We have a couple that are planned for this month in Manhattan and people can register, they're free. I'll be at this and people can register at nycwildflowerweek.org.

Brian Lehrer: That's great. As a last thought on what you were just saying about the parks budget, it's one of the complaints about the budget that the City Council just passed. Mayor Adams ran endorsing the activist campaign for 1% for parks, 1% of the city budget for parks, they did not reach that threshold. You're saying people should realize that the Parks Department money doesn't just go to what we might think of as a park that you walk into, but also the street trees through the neighborhoods?

Marielle Anzelone: Correct. Parks has a lot of area to cover in the city. The majority of the funding, it's just as political as every other agency, and so if people cut projects and then it ends a lot of lower-income neighborhoods that might not have political muscle, but have been underinvested for decades, still don't have their voices heard. That's why having parks equity through the budget is so critical.

Brian Lehrer: Marielle Anzelone, urban botanist and ecologist and the founder of New York City Wildflower Week, and Professor Charlie Nilon from the School of Natural Resources at the University of Missouri. Thank you so much for a really excellent edition of #BLTrees. Marielle will talk to you in the July edition next month.

Marielle Anzelone: Thank you, Brian.

Charles Nilon: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

 

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