Our urban forest is one of San Franciscos most prescious assets, yet the city has systematically defunded our trees for decades. We have approximately a quarter million trees on city property, 60% in parks and 40% on sidewalks. Yet, San Franciscos budget provides such inadequate tree funding that our city departments provide little, if any, proactive routine maintenance. We thus have forestry by triage, and trees decline and fall apart, as described in this article. The citys answer - allow park trees to deteriorate and dump street tree maintenance responsibility on property owners who dont want the trees and cant maintain them adequately - is a terrible answer and guarantees inconsistent maintenance. San Francisco has the smallest tree canopy coverage of any major city in the U.S., and our canopy is shrinking as the expected 4% of trees die each year as they reach the end of their life span. We need to expand the canopy, but we first must get our forestry house in order. The city must increase its investment in trees - weve suggested a small parcel tax, conditioned on the city assuming responsibility for all street trees - and ensure that one of the most beautiful aspects of San Francisco remains so and gets even better. Friends of the Urban Forest San Francisco Parks AllianceThe Nature Conservancy in California San Francisco Forest Alliance
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 15:47:53 +0000
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