Tree Time

The NYT has an interesting story in its Science section today about Diana Beresford-Kroeger, a biochemist and botanist who sees trees as chemical factories.

From the story:

"She favors what she terms a bioplan, reforesting cities and rural areas with trees according to the medicinal, environmental, nutritional, pesticidal and herbicidal properties she claims for them, which she calls ecofunctions.

Wafer ash, for example, could be used in organic farming, she said, planted in hedgerows to attract butterflies away from crops. Black walnut and honey locusts could be planted along roads to absorb pollutants, she said."

But here's what might be most interesting to Midtowners:

"'In a walk through old-growth forest, there are thousands if not millions of chemicals and their synergistic effects with one another,' she said. 'What trees do chemically in the environment is something we’re only beginning to understand.'"

Both Beresford-Kroeger and Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson have proposed using stock from old-growth forests in planting new forests to take advantage of those trees' good genetics.

"'There’s an enormous difference between old-growth forests and tree plantations,' Dr. Wilson said."

I've heard local CPOP member Naomi Van Tol say quite a few times that people don't realize how old some of the trees are in the old-growth forest in Overton Park because they — the trees, not the people — might be roughly the same size as trees in people's front yards.

But the trees in the old-forest have had to fight for survival and their place in the forest, which makes them fitter, hardier, and (apparently) smaller for their age.

"It's Called Progress"*

The Citizens to Preserve Overton Park went before the City Council parks committee Tuesday to ask the council to do four things:

1. Restore 17 acres of old-growth forest, currently controlled by the Memphis Zoo, to free, public use.



2. Update the contract. Originally drafted in 1994, the contract is between the Memphis Zoological Society and the now-defunct Parks Commission.

3. Update the 1988 Overton Park master plan. Though the plan had a horizon of 20 years (and considering it's 2008, that's just about now) it looks unlikely another master plan will be drafted in the near future. Parks director Cindy Buchanan said she thought they could deal with the issue of the forest without spending the dollars needed for a master plan.

4. Create some sort of long-term legal preservation for the old-growth forest, either a conservation easement or a state natural area designation.

I won't go into it very much — if you want to read background on the issue, go here or here.

Construction at Teton Trek

New council member Wanda Halbert — fresh off the evergreen-contract friendly environment of the city schools — mentioned that she was concerned both about public input and how the city seems to be abdicating its responsibilities to quasi-governmental agencies.

"I value our partnerships, but this is city property," she said.

The irony is that the very next thing on the agenda — the very next thing — was an agreement between the city and the University of Tennessee for the school to provide maintenance, security, and other enhancements to Forrest Park.

As presented to the council, the agreement would initially run for a year, then, like the zoo's contract, be renewed each subsequent year unless terminated.

UT vice chancellor Ken Brown said the park was in the heart of their campus and they are interested in adding more lighting and video cameras.

"All improvements will be endorsed by the city," he said.

Halbert, however, wanted to add a more definite time frame to the agreement. "You always forget to terminate a contract," she said.

*"It's called progress," courtesy of Barbara Swearengen Ware. The council member said that not everyone is proud that Memphians stopped the interstate from going through Overton Park and the zoo needs to be able to continue to expand and add new amenities.

Urban Forestry

Here in Memphis, we do a lot of planning. Urban planner Jeff Speck even mentioned it in his recent talk at CBU. You have plenty of plans, he said, now you just need to implement some of them.

Just for a little perspective, I thought it might be fun to look at the History Channel's winning entries for their City of the Future contest. The regional winners are cities you might expect — Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco — but what's interesting is how the participants looked both to the past and to the future in designing their entries.

And that the designs were for the year 2108.

Atlanta won the overall competition with its "The City in the Forest" entry. It was explained thusly:

"The city maintains over 1,900 miles of pipes to collect, combine with wastewater, treat and pipe storm water downstream. Climate change, growth, and sprawling impervious surfaces continue to degrade this outmoded, costly system. ... In the City of the Future, stormwater resurfaces to flow naturally across the land. Freed from use, existing underground systems act as aquifiers, preserving scarce water for long term use.

This simple shift underground, in turn, transforms the landscape above. The rigidity of the urban grid yields to swaths of green and waterscapes. Settlements cluster along ridges and water catchments, participating in a sustainable, living system. Corridors of open spaces spread to link communities in an organic form and fully reclaim The City in the Forest."

Perhaps not coincidentally, there's been a lot of talk lately about cities and trees lately. You can't beat the impact — they improve air quality, make pedestrians feel safer, catch rainwater, help regulate temperature, and, oh, increase property values. What's not to like?

Accordingly, cities are trying to increase their tree canopy. New York city kicked off a 23-year, one-million tree initiative last fall. Boston and D.C. are also trying to add to their canopy. Speck said we weren't doing that great (planting trees was one of his moderate suggestions for making Memphis better) but we all know parts of the city that have beautiful canopies. It's just not citywide.

(We also have old-growth forest being clear cut, but you can go here for more about that.)

One thing we might remember is that, like all our little plans, trees take time to grow. If we want to see a change 20 years from now, we need to start now.