CLEVELAND — Tis the season to rake all the leaves.
While it may be time-consuming and annoying, have you taken the time to remember how important our trees are?
Back in the early 1900s, Cleveland was nicknamed the forest city, but over the last 70 years the tree canopy has almost been cut in half.
It's something the city is determined to fix.
The Cleveland Tree Plan is made up of city officials, local communities and arborists like Lizzie Sords teaming up to rebuild our urban forest to improve living conditions.
“Trees gain value as they age, they’re one of the only pieces of urban infrastructure that does that, they’re working hard for us by adding character to our cities," said the Davey Resource group arborist. "They’re also scrubbing pollutants from the air, sequestering carbon, shading and cooling areas of the city."
This group is doing its part by providing trees. About 200 of them have been planted this fall.
Currently, Cleveland’s tree canopy is at 18 percent, down from 21 percent in 2000. The goal is to have 30 percent canopy cover in Cleveland by 2040.
“It does take a lot of resources to make that happen, which I think is the biggest limiting factor, but there is a lot of momentum and shared vision from the partners involved to move forward and succeed on the plan,” said Sords.
The effort is strong, but the urban forestry commission says they need more money to maintain current trees and to plant new ones. They are hoping to get a grant from the state soon and possible federal dollars in the spring.
According to the Director of Sustainability & Climate Justice Sarah O’Keeffe the city needs you!
“Those entities that own land and can plant trees, it’s going to take all of us to do this work together, the city itself can do street trees, vacant property trees but that is actually not the majority of the tree canopy in our city."
If you want to help, take action by visiting clevelandtrees.org, which is the site for the Cleveland Tree Coalition.