By Derek Schubert
As the winter rains recede in our memories and the summer sun bakes Oakland's clay soil into bricks, the Sierra Club Tree Team looks back on another successful planting season. From November 2015 to July 2016, volunteers with the Tree Team planted 453 trees: a new record in the Tree Team's seven-season history. We planted 125 trees in April alone, the team's busiest month ever. This year’s record planting season brings our total number of trees planted (since January 2010) to over 1,900!
This year, all seven of Oakland's City Council districts received trees. We also ran several pruning days, providing vital attention to 400 trees that had gone years without proper care. More than 250 volunteers of all ages planted or pruned with the Tree Team this season — some once or twice, but others ten or more times — totaling roughly 1,200 hours.
Most of the trees were planted along streets and sidewalks, but many were for parks or schools. San Antonio Park received 27 new elm trees and Courtland Creek Park received 25 new flowering plum trees. Manzanita, Hoover School, and the Lockwood Campus (Futures Elementary and CUES) also received a total of 80 trees. At Lockwood, the plantings in early April were part of a day of volunteer activity for hundreds of college students attending a Bay Area conference convened by the Clinton Global Initiative.
The Tree Team will be dormant for the summer. Coordinator Derek Schubert and other senior volunteers, including founder Arthur Boone, will soon begin preparing for the 2016-17 season.
Much of the Tree Team’s work this year was funded by a grant from CAL FIRE to plant street trees throughout the East Oakland Flatlands (Districts 2, 5, 6, and 7), transforming concrete into greenspace in neighborhoods deemed environmentally disadvantaged. Our goal is to plant 1,500 trees in the next three years. As the new trees grow, they will take in carbon dioxide, helping to combat climate change and provide a number of social and environmental benefits to the surrounding community, including cleaner air, cooler temperatures (and lower energy bills!), reduced stormwater flooding, wildlife habitat, and increased property values.
Sadly, the Tree Team recently lost one of its most dedicated, yet humble, volunteers, Jack Bowers. Jack was also a long-time leader with Inspiring Connections Outdoors (formerly Inner City Outings). He will be greatly missed.
Public trees in Oakland have gotten short shrift since the City Council removed most of the funding from the Tree Services Division in the recession-era budget of 2009. Although the Tree Team is proud of our planting and pruning successes this year, we want Oakland to restore funding to its Tree Services Division and rehire staff to plant and prune trees all over the city. Scientific studies paint a dire picture of the condition of the world's trees overall, but show how effectively trees can improve local environmental conditions and quality of life, especially in cities.
WhatYouCanDo
The Tree Team relies on volunteers, and that can include you. Email SCTreePlanting@gmail.com to get on the mailing list for the 2016-17 season, and join the Bay Chapter's Meetup group to see our planting or pruning events, including training sessions for planting-crew leaders. Email us if you want to help on your own time with support tasks, such as retrieving steel stakes from trees that no longer need them, or maintaining or repairing our tools and equipment.
You can also donate money to the Tree Team, since the grant from CAL FIRE doesn't cover all our expenses and doesn't apply to all parts of Oakland. To ensure that your donation gets credited properly, follow the instructions on the Tree Team website.
If you live in or own property in Oakland, you can request one or more trees: street trees for your address, or trees for a nearby park or school. You will be responsible for watering and looking after the new trees for the first few years. To request a tree, follow the instructions here.