"1 billion, million, fafillion, shabolubalu million illiion..." Trees!

This week, Mayor Villariagosa announced his "1 Million Trees" initiative with a fancy website. Basically, the Mayor has a goal of planting a million trees over the next several years. This is modeled after the first "Million Tree Campaign" of the early 1980s spearheaded by TreePeople. It cost the city nothing and was completed in just a few years after initial estimates said it would take 20 years and $200 million dollars. They started in 1981 and finished just a few days before the Olympics arrived to Los Angeles for the second time.

This new campaign is one that involves technology. Every tree an individual plants counts towards that million. You could be alone at home and plant a walnut sapling in your backyard and the tally will go up as we sore towards 1 million new trees.

There are non-profit groups charged with planting in certain areas, and every person is asked to help or tell a neighbor. My concern is the fact that trees continue to get planted in the lusher neighborhoods where the hotter, less forested areas continue to trail. By looking at the Canopy Cover map on the site, you can see that the South LA & East Side Council Districts have the least canopy. But, by grouping Council District communities as one area, this also creates an inequity of where the greatest need is. These arbitrary political boundaries are not very good ways to evaluate the city. A better view would be looking at a heat island map, especially on a day like today. (I know maps like this are out there, I just can't seem to locate one online. Anyone have a source for this?) Or, take a hike up to Mount Hollywood and see the disparity between Hancock Park and its adjacent communities - the canopy cover disparity is clear. (Don't even look to East Los Angeles!)

But back to the million...

If the Mayor wants to plant 1 million trees, let's say, in his first term (that makes sense, right?), and there have been 33,275 planted since as of June 30th - that leaves 966,725 trees to plant in the next 36 months. That means that over 26,853 trees would need to be planted each month, and just over 6,196 trees per week. That means for the next year (actually, starting July 1st, the City needs to be planting over 885 trees a day, which means about 37 trees per hour for the next 3 years straight. That's a lot of planting!!

Now, how many trees have you planted this year? AND are those trees in a heat island or a well-forested community like Hancock Park or Woodland Hills?

Photo of Griffith Park from PreserveLA.