Casey Trees releases Third Annual Tree Report Card in conjunction with Arbor Day, D.C. falls to a C

Read the 2010 Tree Report Card and those from past years in their entirety.

Each spring in conjunction with Arbor Day, Casey Trees releases its Tree Report Card – the only independent assessment of a city’s trees in the nation. The Tree Report Card rates five individual tree metrics – awareness, coverage, health, planting and protection – to arrive at an overall grade which reflects the quantity and quality of the District’s trees and public and private efforts to expand and sustain them.

For activities occurring in 2010 the overall grade is a C, a decline from the B- given the previous year. 

The lower grade is due in large part to the F assigned to tree protection which measures the effectiveness of the Urban Forest Preservation Act (UFPA) of 2002. The UFPA and its Tree Fund were created to replace large trees that are removed due to development and related activities. Our findings show that the UFPA is not achieving its goals due to poor oversight and use of Tree Fund dollars for purposes unrelated to those stipulated in the UFPA. 

Chief among the issues cited for the failing grade was the redirecting of $539,000 from the Tree Fund to the General Fund in FY11 to offset budget shortfalls and the lack of records to show if 10,000 trees that should have been planted since 2002 are alive or were even planted. Our Tree Report Card recommends that the Gray Administration reevaluate how the UFPA is administered and potentially shift that role to an agency that is better suited to the tasks outlined in the Act.

Read the entire 2010 Tree Report Card in a page-turning publication on our website. 

SEPTEMBER IS HERE, SCHOOL IS IN

Contributing Writer - Mike Galvin, Deputy Director

It is that time of year again – back to teachers, back to books, and back to report cards. Bringing the report card home can be anxious time for students, but report cards are an important tool for the parents, the student, and the teachers to be able to measure progress and success.

Here at Casey Trees, we are also concerned about report cards. In spring 2009, Casey Trees launched the first annual Tree Report Card, the only independent evaluation of the District’s trees and tree canopy. As our mission is to restore, enhance, and protect the tree canopy of the Nation’s capital, knowing how that canopy is doing is very important to us. The first Tree Report Card yielded an overall “B” grade – not bad at all (something most students would be pleased to bring home). The Report Card did however identify some weak areas and areas for improvement.

In April of 2008, Mayor Fenty announced a Tree Canopy Cover goal for Washington, D.C. The goal is to have 40% of the land area of D.C covered with tree canopy by the year 2035. This will require the planting of 8,600 trees per year for 25 years.

It is pretty tough to cram for that kind of test. Please help D.C maintain a great grade for 2009 and volunteer to plant trees with us this fall. You can sign up for Tree Planting and Care events on our web site sign-up tool.

Thanks for helping us achieve our mission, and for helping DC’s tree canopy get a good grade for 2009. Good luck to all of our students as well; best wishes for success in the 2009-2010 school year.

IN THE NEWS - WASHINGTON BUSINESS JOURNAL

Thanks Washington Business Journal! Don't be the last person to read the results of the First Annual Tree Report Card - click here.

FIRST ANNUAL TREE REPORT CARD - FIRST IN THE NATION

Report Cards. You got plenty of them growing up - some of them good and some of them not so good. No matter how you fell in the mix, the report cards always gave you a pretty good sense of what your strengths were and what areas you needed to work on.

Cities are no different. DC is a wonderful place to call home and do business but there remains a lot that we can collectively do to better safeguard our environment and our most precious resource - our trees. The Tree Report Card will provide Washingtonians with a yearly and easy to understand way to gauge the overall condition of the City's trees and practical ways they can help to restore the tree canopy of the District.

The Tree Report Card uses five metrics - Coverage, Health, Planting, Protection and Awareness - to generate the District's overall grade. Only one metric - Tree Health - received an "A". Tree Protection received the lowest grade, a "C".

Read the full Tree Report Card here.

IN THE NEWS - CASEY TREES UTC GOAL

Be sure to visit caseytrees.org this Saturday, April 25 at 12 noon to learn more about the Urban Tree Canopy (UTC) Goal, try out Casey Trees' new interactive UTC and tree finder maps, AND read up on the findings of the First Annual Tree Report Card.

To read the full Washington Business Journal article, click here.

YOU'RE INVITED - FIRST ANNUAL TREE REPORT CARD PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

We would love for all Casey Trees supporters to attend this special press announcement but space is limited.

To r.s.v.p., email jpowell@caseytrees.org by April 22.