Quick Note:

Yo! I was going to publish an article called American Culture & Arboriculture at the start of May. It is like 85% complete. I think, though, it might be wise to delay that article further because only one month ago I published the poaching article.

I don’t want to flood the feed with heavy articles, ya know? So to break that up, and at the request of a bunch of Instagram followers, we’ll post a video tour of our pruning van this month instead.

Here’s a true story that just happened.

Check this sign out that my buddy Ryan found in one of Ferndale’s parks. He and I were just talking about the dozens of mature trees being removed from Ferndale’s parks.

This sign was made by an arborist on the Ferndale tree crew after they were getting lots of upset calls following trees being removed in the parks.

I created my own sign, and I was going to put it up right next to their sign. Here it is below:

A bit of fun and anonymous tree-mischief. But something crazy happened. We met before I could get the chance.

Winry and I were taking pictures of the stumps in the park on a rainy day (as one does). The park was empty. Was listening to Aphex Twin in my headphones. 

A man approached me in this unoccupied park and said “Hey, are you with Tree First? I’ve been meaning to talk to you”

Holy shit. 

Callum told me he’s seen our vans around, had checked us out online before, and knew what we were about. Insanely flattering. My presentation then sucked because I was so surprised. I was excited—did too much talking. But! 

Callum told me something very profound after I asked about the trees being removed in the park:

People are quick to get fired up about trees being removed in the park. But they’re more than happy to request that their easement tree be removed.

A very interesting commentary from someone with a very particular experience in municipal arboriculture. I believe him.

I’ve heard this sentiment too, but less frequently than Callum must.

A duality exists here. We’re OK with permitting certain elements of nature to live, just so long as they don’t inconvenience us.

Let me remind us all of this:

Nature doesn’t respect these “land use” zones. A tree doesn’t know when it is in a park or when it is in an easement or in a forest. The tree’s importance transcends the context we put them in.

All of the rights of nature should remain consistent across these boundaries.

Callum also shed some light on the nature of “city” arboriculture, or municipal arboriculture: with 8,000 or so trees, their budget is strictly for managing risk.

And managing risk is important, there are a lot of trees for them to look at. It is a huge responsibility. Tree risk has been inherently easier to improve or make worse due to chainsaws being the main tool.

Tree stress and tree health require bigger budgets, and are a different domain of arboriculture. They utilize a different set of tools and skills. Those arborists don’t often work for cities, frankly.

Meeting Callum was serendipitous. What are the odds that Ferndale’s arborist lives across the park I was visiting? He picked me out from across the park and thought I must be of Tree First.

How unbelievable.

He was the exact person I’d been hoping to find, without even knowing who he was. I went through the effort to create mischievous signs to provoke something. And before I could even finish my plan, he found me.

And so a reality for you to know is that most city trees are only looked at through a risk management lens, and not necessarily through an arboriculture lens, ya know? Despite what they might say.

Like I said on my sign: tree stress is not a one way street. Trees can be managed without being killed. Old trees are important to keep around for their ecosystem services.

I think a way to better improve your local trees is to better equip/fund the municipal tree programs. I think those cities have to better inform their citizens of the realities of their urban forestry plans. A difficult hurdle here is getting those arborists working for cities.

But that too, is a two way street. We have to get involved with our cities.

I’m writing this to you as much as I am writing this to myself.

Ferndale’s website says:

The City of Ferndale is a Tree City USA-designated community, that prides itself on maintaining a healthy urban forest. The current urban canopy cover for the City is 30%, with a goal of achieving 40%. To improve our canopy, the City has created a variety of programs—including a community tree planting program, tree maintenance program, and updates to some ordinances and policies—to ensure safe, healthy tree coverage now and into the future. 

I could dissect this very finely. But above all; see it says safe first, then healthy. This is deliberate.

Due to their resources, they can really only determine if something is safe. Most municipalities don’t have people who can measure tree health on staff. As I said, most good arborists aren’t working in city arboriculture.

Therefore they don’t really see tree health. All they can measure is ‘safe’ or ‘not safe’.

This, of course, is meaningful, right? We need the trees not to pose excessive risk to us. However, due to cities’ acceptance level of risk being so low, and the sheer terror the liability monster invokes, many trees that could be managed, are not. They are made safe by being removed and replaced.

That’s all they can do with what they have.

A recommendation I have for Ferndale or any city with parks

Leave snags.

It is so easy, and so important.

Due to budgeting issues and good arborists not usually working for municipalities, cities often hire third parties to assess their city’s canopy coverage. Ferndale hired Davey Resource Group to do so.

When reading Davey Resource Group’s 2018 report for Ferndale, lots of cool information in there. But! Something was missing.

The Davey Resource Group recommends an unevenly aged tree population, as they always will for any city, for Ferndale. They use words like “performance” in their reports because the way that these trees are viewed is strictly through economic terms.

Their performance is quantified by stormwater runoff reduced, carbon sequestered, shade costs, etc.. Actually very interesting stuff, but a missing category is ecology. Which is apparently difficult to quantify, and isn’t (for some reason) deemed important enough to figure out.

We share an ecosystem that has living things in it that aren’t just humans. Leaving low snags seems like a pretty easy thing to do, considering it is less work for the tree crew and is environmentally savvy. The risks posed by snags are very low; even lower than living trees. The PR for leaving snags would be awesome too. Signage just like the ones I made could be placed in front of a snag explaining what it is.

The Davey Resource Group’s own language in the Ferndale report also identifies stumps as low risk:

In that same statement they also identify the acceptable risk level is decided by city managers. Is a snag or a downed log any more or less safe than playground equipment?

I reckon they’re about the same. The difference is that snags and logs provide habitat for wildlife, whereas playground equipment doesn’t.

I think citizens would be into it. We do it each time we reluctantly condemn one of our clients’ trees. Snags are also present in healthy forest ecosystems, and part of educating the public on that is explaining that trees don’t just perform when they’re “pristine”, they also perform and provide when they are dead.

That’s part of what makes a tree, a tree.

I don’t mean to single out Ferndale, it is just an example of the problems. I understand they’re limited by budgets and equipment and training. But! With the expertise of the tools they do have, leaving snags is achievable and an awesome place to start.