Clearing Up the Confusion of Ownership

Ambiguous responsibility has killed many urban trees. Volunteer planted trees can sometimes land in gray areas of ownership between residents, nonprofits and their volunteers, and the local government. Openlands’ signed volunteer tree maintenance agreement dispels any ambiguity. Their volunteers know exactly what is expected of them. Openlands also uses the volunteer contact information to send seasonal maintenance emails, such as reminders to water or re-mulch.

The Power of Presence

A sign, flier, or QR code doesn’t have the same impact as a real, live human showing up onsite. Openlands personnel get out on a weekly basis to check on new tree plantings. Tom has seen firsthand how repeated exposure inevitably builds a connection with a community. That relationship yields valuable information, like concerns about the trees or evolving needs of the park.

Not Every Treeless Space Is Lacking

Tree sites must be picked with care. The onus is on the planter to make sure they are not disregarding some other important use of the space. This is where having a community relationship comes in. This is something Tom deeply admires in the work of Dr. Christine Carmicheal, who conducted research on why roughly 25% of Detroit residents declined the offer for new trees planted in front of their homes.

Through interviews with residents, she found many felt the decision to cut down trees or plant new ones would be made by others, yet they would have to deal with the consequences. There were also heritage narratives of residents’ past experiences with trees. Sometimes the city took forever to remove dying trees and other times street trees were abruptly removed en masse. Having applications for TreePlanters Grants come directly from residents protects against putting trees where they are not wanted.

Speaking the Same Language

Openlands has used periodic tree canopy assessments from the Chicago Regional Trees Initiative to help identify where to focus tree planting efforts. The southwest area of Chicago jumped out as an area with disproportionately low canopy. In checking their records, Openlands also found this area had not applied for many TreePlanters Grants. The reason why quickly became clear.

The southwest area of Chicago is the largest Spanish-speaking community in the United States, and no one in the organization was asking if residents wanted trees in Spanish. So Openlands made that area their new priority. Now, they’ve developed bilingual resources, and are connecting with community members that can go around and talk to their neighbors about trees. Additionally, the TreePlanters Grant program has a staff member fluent in Spanish to continue to strengthen their relationships and start to get trees in a part of the city that could really use them.