Wednesday, April 23, 2008

From Earth Day to Arbor Day

Did you know the 30 acres that are home to the Katy Trail are classified as an Urban Forest? That’s why the Friends of the Katy Trail hired Arborilogical Services eight years ago to complete a tree inventory of the Trail from the AAC to Knox Street, and recently helped a future Eagle Scout conduct a tree inventory from Knox to Airline Road.

When it comes to helping the environment, a story in The New York Times reported that urban trees "can be 15 times more effective than a tree merely standing in the forest” because “three trees will sequester one ton of CO2 over a lifetime of 55 years.” A booklet titled "Urban Street Trees” by Dan Burden, founder of Walkable Communities, claims that "a single street tree returns over $90,000 of direct benefits (not including aesthetic, social and natural) in the lifetime of the tree."

Arbor Day is this Friday, April 25. Consider planting a tree in your part of our urban jungle … er … forest.

No comments: