Every year from March 7-14, Californians celebrate Arbor Week by planting and maintaining trees within their communities. Last year, organizations and individuals statewide planted nearly 195,000 trees during Arbor Week. This year local group Keep Eureka Beautiful is planting 37 street trees throughout Eureka.
Tree planting in California is at an all-time high, and Eureka is no exception. Keep Eureka Beautiful planted 100 street trees in 2012, bringing the total to 550 over the years.
Everyone loves trees, right? Well, sort of. The majority of the public is not against trees, we're indifferent. But we shouldn't be. Research shows that trees have a profound impact not only on community life, but on mental and physical health.
Study after study links urban greenery to improved public health: people who live near trees are three times more likely to be physically active and 40 percent less likely to be overweight or obese. Children have fewer symptoms of ADD, hypertension and asthma, and stress levels are lower.
Trees strengthen neighborhoods. Outdoor spaces with trees bring out local residents, where they're more likely to interact with their neighbors and get to know each other. In buildings with trees nearby, people report a greater sense of safety.
Trees slow traffic, reduce graffiti, and reduce property and violent crime. They may even help deter domestic violence. Studies in Chicago and Alabama showed that residents in public housing with trees nearby reported less use of violence and more constructive ways of dealing with family conflict than people living without trees nearby.
Yet when it comes to budgets, trees are usually considered frills -- pretty, yes, but not essential, like law enforcement. But what if local governments understood that trees help reduce social service budgets and police calls? When budgets are tight, we don't stop sewage treatment. What if trees were considered as important a part of urban infrastructure as streets, electricity and sewers?
The environment has an enormous impact on the human spirit. When we see nothing but concrete, we shut our doors and lock our windows. The streets empty, filled only with graffiti and litter and heroin needles. Our children get asthma.
When I wander along some of Eureka's bleak, treeless streets, I ponder the irony that not far away stand some of the most revered trees on the planet. I muse about our town's troubled history and the role that trees -- or the absence of trees -- may have played in all that poignant suffering.
It's sad, but it's not inevitable. There is a simple, feasible, and affordable way to change the situation. First is to recognize that buildings do not make a community. It takes trees. And a tree in front of a house is a win-win for everyone: it not only increases the value and aesthetics of that home, it positively affects the safety and livability of the whole street.
If you want more trees on your block, contact the volunteer group, Keep Eureka Beautiful. Grant funding has allowed the organization to plant trees in the sidewalks in front of Eureka residences for only $75, to help offset the cost of cutting the holes in the concrete. For information, call Keep Eureka Beautiful at 707 444-8147 or email email@example.com.
Trees are an environmental issue and a health issue, but they're even more than that. Trees are a human right. We need trees like we need water.
Louisa Rogers is a management consultant and coach who lives in Eureka.