By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
17 years ago, Seattle’s then-mayor Greg Nickels announced a tree-planting plan to keep the city from losing more of its tree canopy.
Several mayors later, the city is still struggling with stopping canopy loss.
The city is working on a new tree policy. Separate from that – and yet an offshoot of sorts – Mayor Bruce Harrell was among a group of officials and advocates who gathered at West Seattle’s Roxhill Park this morning to announce a new statewide tree initiative: The Washington Tree Equity Collaborative.
This one is a “statewide effort to create tree equity in Washington,” as described by Jad Daley of American Forests, who emceed the event. Daley said his group has studied canopy cover in neighborhoods nationwide – creating this “scoring” tool as a result – and found less of it in neighborhoods where a majority of residents are low-income and/or BIPOC. “This is not just scenery we’re talking about – this is critical green infrastructure,” Daley declared. Before our summary continues, here’s video of the five speakers:
Daley said that getting every neighborhood in the state to even a 75 tree-equity score would take 2.6 million more trees. An even more ambitious goal, getting to 100, would take 13 million trees.
Right now, though, said state Public-Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz, the state’s trees are declining in number and health: “Washington is known as the Evergreen State, yet our trees are truly in trouble. … Access to greenspace and shade should be a fundamental right.” Less tree canopy means more heat, and that’s the weather extreme that’s deadlier than catastrophic storms, Franz said. “The answer is so simple – plant more trees and plant them in the right places.” That costs money, she noted, mentioning an $8 million request before the Legislature, and $6 million already secured from the federal government.
Then it was on to the city’s role. Seattle’s Office of Sustainability and Environment director Jessyn Farrell acknowledged that the most recent canopy assessment showed Seattle had lost 255 acres of trees, 1.7% of its canopy, since the previous assessment six years earlier. And relevant to today’s topic, the loss is happening inequitably. She added that addressing the problem means not just planting trees but taking better care of the existing ones.
Speaking next, Mayor Harrell acknowledged that the latest tree-canopy assessment showed that canopy loss on public property is a major problem, noting that he’s ordered that every tree lost on city land be replaced by three new ones.
Bringing it home to the specific piece of public property on which everyone was gathered this morning, Delridge community advocate Willard Brown (above with the mayor) pointed out the plight of Roxhill Park’s bog, a historic wetland that’s been drying out. The area’s status as Longfellow Creek‘s headwaters is priceless, he said – “it’s vital that the creek remains healthy.” Some work is planned later this year, Brown said. He also gently dinged the city for big talk and no followthrough on another West Seattle site, the Myers Way Parcels, which the city promised X years ago would be transferred to Seattle Parks – which has yet to happen.
After the speeches, one question was asked: Local greenspace activist and arborist Michael Oxman asked how the talk of increasing canopy matches with what’s happening in Olympia, with legislators approving upzoning for much of the state, opening the door to more densification. Farrell – a former state legislator – tackled the question, declaring, “There is no conflict between increasing tree canopy and increasing housing.” She said the biggest trouble spots even now are public lands and “neighborhood residential” (formerly “single-family”) zoning, “not so much because of development as because of age and health.” Franz echoed that “we have to address both our housing crisis and our tree crisis,” also contending they aren’t in conflict.
Then it was off to a photo op, mulching trees in the park’s southwest corner. The mayor had moved on by then but Farrell dug in:
P.S. You can check your neighborhood’s Tree Equity Score via the American Forests map here. You can read the Memorandum of Understanding that’s at the heart of the new collaborative by going here.
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