 Welcome to Healthy Planet, the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet on the ThinkTech Livestreaming Network series. I'm your host, Dr. Grace O'Neill. Joining me today is Winston Welch, Executive Director of the Outdoor Circle. Today we're gonna talk about keeping Hawaii clean and green. Welcome, Winston. Tell us about how you got involved in the outdoor circle. Well, actually, it's interesting because my first encounter with the outdoor circle, I was working for a company that I had mentioned about doing some advertising. I was new to the islands relatively. It was decades ago and my boss said, oh, no, no, no, you can't do that. You can't have advertising outside because the outdoor circle. And I said, what's the other circle? Why can't we have ads? But then as I've come to realize and many, many people have told me over the years is right, the outdoor circle is the reason why we have this beautiful pristine environment that is unencumbered by billboards and offsite advertising and blighting our visual environment. So this is a really rare thing that we have here that it's not obvious what you don't have in something like that until you go to the mainland or you're driving down the road and the high desert or anywhere and you see these giant billboards to eat this product or shop here and it's just marring the landscape. We don't have that in Hawaii and that's exactly because of the outdoor circle. So in addition to the billboards, what kind of other missions does the outdoor circle have? Well, the mission is pretty simple and pretty broad. So it started in 1912 by a group of women who just was, we're looking at the city and saying, okay, we can make this better. It comes out of a city beautiful movement after they had traveled and seen what other cities and countries had been doing, they said, we need that in Honolulu. We need trees to beautify the dusty landscape to reinforce the denuded hills of caused by grazing and chopping down native trees. So our mission is very simple. It's to keep Hawaii clean, green and beautiful by preserving, protecting and enhancing our environment. What that means is, of course, we have a, that's a pretty broad mission statement, but essentially it's looking and seeing what's a visual blight, especially in our environment and how do we remove that and replace it with something beautiful? So it's very much a, all of the founders, of course, this is 1910. So this is a very strong community organization with supported by our, the life force of any organization as its members and we have branches on all of the islands. So the branches are very local and concerned about what's important to them in their neighborhood. And they run the gamut of, like on the North Shore of Oahu. Oh, they do things like protecting the view planes from the road or the bike path up there to lots of planting and beautification. Oh, wonderful. Mm-hmm. And every branch has its own thing that they focus on, but as they all come together, we look at the branches like a branches of a tree and then the trunk is coordinated by, or stabilized by the central office, which is the 501C3. So I saw that you guys also had a tree giveaway recently. Actually, I did get a tree. I had my husband go and get a tree. So we received a kakui nut tree and it's in our backyard now. How did you guys obtain these trees and what kind of, do you have any other ideas for other tree giveaways? I think this is great for the community. Okay, we'll tell me, where did you get your tree? In Manoa. In Manoa, okay. So you probably got that from our Manoa branch of the outdoor circle. What we did this last Arbor Day in Hawaii and Arbor Day in Hawaii is the, let's see, it's the first Saturday following the first Friday in November. We're a little bit different here because of the Makahiki season. It's a good time to plant trees here in the winter as the rains start to come. So what we did this year, a little bit more special than normal was because it was our 110th anniversary in 2022 and also the 100th anniversary of the Honolulu Shade Tree Commission which the outdoor circle was instrumental in forming. We did an all branch activity where we gave away trees at all of our branches that was supported by different grants especially one from Arbor Day. And so we just looked to bring the community together because this is not just about, trees and beautifying our environment but it's also about community. It's about bringing people together and realizing that each person has an impact on what they can do that's positive in their community even just for their own home but that tree that you planted in a few years will become a beautiful place of shade and something else for your neighbors to look at and places for birds to come and nest in. So it's drawing everybody together in this great event and we generally do this every year in Manoa. They, that branch specifically does do their tree give away and that's a tradition that they've had. We do it in our other branches as well just depending on what the desires of the branches are but most branches, this is a core activity of the outdoor circle is giving away and planting trees such that basically every large tree in the state that you've seen that's been planted was either planted by the outdoor circle or advocated by the outdoor circle, not 100% but we've had a major impact in the state in parks, roads, schools, shopping centers, everything. So Winston, I saw on the website that Kona actually had a project where the women there planted a bunch of trees and I don't know if, I saw that on the website I thought that was pretty cool and I'm supposing that all the branches like you said had, like you said the North Shore plants and trees on the trails is it mostly around the trails or on the side of the road? I think Kona was on the side of the road that they planted the trees. They had beautification projects also coming out of the airports and those sorts of things so it's not just trees but it might have been the beautiful Boogambees you might see on the highway or encouraging people to plant in their own yards because actually, while we have this great history of planting trees and not just the trails we actually did an interesting thing with Google Trekker where we mapped all of these incredible trails with a 360 degree view carrying this machine so you can virtually visit all kinds of trails and places in Hawaii. You can check that out on the website outdoorcircle.org but the organization has just focused originally sort of on a cityscape which was putting in sidewalks and advocating for those getting the commission for parks and to plant more trees in the public sphere as well as encouraging things like on the military basis or in our schools. So the reach has been broad and deep and it just continues and it's planted one tree at a time it wasn't as if we planted a million trees in a day it takes over a century to do this so it's a collective response that is necessary to uphold and maintain and we're always looking for new members to contribute and join this really powerful organization in the history of Hawaii that's unique to Hawaii. And what do members do? How do you become a member and do the members just do any money or do they volunteer for the tree giveaways, plant trees, I'm assuming? Well, you know, membership is different things to different people essentially what members do when you think about what you might be a member of you're a member because you want to support the organization fundamentally you may not have the wherewithal or the time or the ability to get out and plant trees but you appreciate and respect what the organization does. You know, the Elder Circle does a lot more than just planting trees and protecting scenic view planes it's advocating all over the place and I recommend people go to our policy positions on the website to see more about what we focus on because it is a lot but if you want to join you go to the website just click on membership and join we have essentially pay what you like model and that allows you to join any or all branches as well so when you're joining you're joining the Elder Circle but most people choose to also join a branch and that's where their focus will be so you're in Manoa and that branch would be concerned with things in Manoa and keeping that area clean green and beautiful so you may want to be getting involved in tree planting you might want to adopt a park as part of what your mission is you may want to write testimony you may want to help in cataloging our history we have a recent agreement with the state archives where we're cataloging tens of thousands of documents so that researchers can go back in the past and find out how this organization has had so many impacts from everything from the women's movement to environmental to lawsuits involving protecting the scenic view plane there's all types of information there so we need helpers and volunteers for all kinds of areas and if you see a need then bring it to our attention because chances are if like any organization it's about people getting involved we have a tiny staff at the headquarters this is a volunteer run and led and organization so it's all about members, volunteers caring about their community and stepping up to the plate making a difference so how did you specifically I know you told me about how you learned about the organization but how did you end up getting involved you just were interested because you heard about them and then you I had experience and I was managing a couple of other organizations before this and the actually the job listing came up and I was just submitted my resume to the board and went in and talked to them and looked at what this organization was and where it might go and what its needs were and we found that it was a good match since that was about eight years ago oh nice, nice I was also looking at some of the things you have on your website and I saw there's something called the exceptional tree program can you tell us about that so we have spearheaded a program the exceptional tree act in 1975 this gives a heightened level of recognition and protection for trees that are deemed exceptional the counties administer this through the arborist advisory committees but the outer circle I believe is the only place where you can find all exceptional trees where we have all kinds of metrics on these trees their height, their crown spread why they were nominated to this list and it's a pretty stringent qualifications we'd like to see a secondary list come out of trees that maybe don't meet that threshold of exceptional trees but that are certainly worthy of stronger protections and recognition so that's something we'll be looking forward to in the future but the exceptional trees map that we have you can go on our website and download that or the app and we have walks where you can the little blue dot follows you around Kapilani Park or many different places and shows you okay here's this tree here's its history and we're looking at also adding different layers on there which might include different stories or specific histories about maybe who planted this tree or maybe the whole grove when it was planted and what would the impetus behind that so the exceptional trees program is a really important and fundamental characteristic of our state's desire to protect trees and we hope that it just expands greatly from here again they can find that on our website if our viewers are interested and they should be because we've got a lot of really magnificent trees here that deserve to be celebrated and what kind of qualities do can people look for if they want to nominate an exceptional tree because you said some trees don't quite make the qualifications for exceptional so what kind of trees would be exceptional are they really big trees, certain species? It's a good question in Oahu it can be on private land where the property owner has to sign up or anyone can nominate a tree on public land of course the state has to take care of that it's age, size, rarity, historic and cultural value aesthetic value, endemic status and location so those are the qualifications that we have and the counties could be more stringent or have some more qualifications for that but those forms are available on our website so if people are interested they can and should nominate trees for exceptional status and we are unique as far as I know in the world for people that have an exceptional tree they actually get to write off the cost of caring for that tree on their taxes if you build out your taxes you see on there it says like give a dollar for the election fund but then it's also do you have an exceptional tree it's one of the very few lines on there so it helps people So you can nominate it on your property that's great Absolutely because your tree is going to require care it's just like any being and so we want to acknowledge that as a state and we do and say hey if you got this tree and it's an exceptional tree you're going to get a tax break because we appreciate you taking care of that That's wonderful so are these exceptional trees are they marked so people know not to cut them down suppose when you buy a property I mean you're a new home owner and you're from out of state you don't know anything about this exceptional tree program is it going to be I suppose they could write it in the disclosures but I mean I'm just worried that these exceptional trees will be cut down I think if you have an exceptional tree on your property you're pretty much going to let any buyer know this is a really key feature the trees are protected by law so you actually have to seek any permit to change anything and we would hope that nobody would do that I haven't heard of anything like that so we are actually looking at how do we write this into getting it into an MLS or on the property transfer forms but whatever those are to say yes if you have this like it is a disclosure and the same for developers if they're coming in and changing putting up a different building or new building that that's automatically flagged in the department of planning and permitting that says hey you've got an exceptional tree here you need to take exceptional care so that's something that we're exactly working on right at this time as these sort of systems make it a little bit easier to do that and nothing falls through the cracks so theoretically you could nominate a tree on somebody else's property but they would have to sign off on it that's true you could I mean essentially it will be under his or their name that are signing the form so that person would be the one actually you could put this sample on the envelope but essentially yeah you could bring that up with somebody and say hey Mrs. Tanaka you have an exceptional tree here I'm going to download this form I'm going to fill out all the information that I can and then I'm going to send it in under your name is that okay I think that's the way to look at it so yeah you could facilitate a nomination for an exceptional tree I mean because I see some kind of really sad things happen that's why I ask because you know sometimes I take a lot of walks with my dog and then I noticed that there was a huge mango tree on the corners providing a lot of shade and then I saw somebody new had moved in the house and they cut the thing down you know I mean I don't know if that would even qualify as an exceptional tree because it's a fruit tree and you know it's a great question that's why I mentioned we need other levels of protection for our trees because even on my street where I live I have a tree but it's a space has been made for it in the driveway to literally a cut out but there's almost no other trees on my street because most we've been losing canopy coverage every year for decades and this is not mostly on public land it's on private lands so those trees that mango tree that you once saw it was a big beautiful mango tree that sort of anchored the neighborhood and now there's nothing there because people cut it down for whatever reasons but what we really need to focus on at this point as much as public space is great to focus on our Department of Urban Forestry does a pretty good job of keeping up the hundreds of thousands of trees they have to maintain what we need to focus on now is private landowners private individuals encouraging them not to cut down the big trees especially but for others also to plant trees the right tree in the right place with the right care so that it's not gonna hit the power lines and those sorts of things we can do this it's just a matter of collective will and maybe it's also involves some legislation that would provide some other sort of financial benefits even though that would be a really a secondary reason to do that but whatever we can do helps but the trees don't have to be labeled or anything they are some of them are noted I know that but others are not especially if you've got a tree on a private piece of property you may not want people traipsing in to see it so there's no requirement that they allow people on to see those trees that the important thing is that they're there and that they're protected Yeah, I mean I've seen some in Alamoana Park that are labeled I'm wondering if they're exceptional or just because it's a city park that somebody is taking care of it like an arborist and they think it's a nice tree and they just put a nice little label on it because they have some really nice big trees there Yeah, it might be both it might be just to educate the public on what kind of the trees are what kind of trees they are or it may also have an exceptional listing next to it and if it does it'll certainly say it's an exceptional tree of Foster Garden has a number of exceptional trees which the ladies staffed that visitor center 364 days a year 363 days a year for many, many decades so I encourage you to go down like you said Alamoana Park we have a great walking Capulani, Capulani has beautiful trees We have great guides just to walk down there and learn more about those trees so I encourage people to use that and create their own maps as well I mean take your kids down there and talk about trees if you don't know what it is there's great apps where you can point a picture at a leaf and it'll tell you what kind of tree it is so great opportunities out there well I say yeah you could use your app for that just go sit under the tree you don't need an app to enjoy the tree and we got to remind ourselves that every tree that you're sitting under today every tree without exception was planted by somebody who cared about people in the future sitting under these trees they may be a hundred years old they may be older than that but they were planted deliberately by somebody who was saying we need this now and in the future and just had to imagine the beauty of you and your cakey sitting under those trees and having a picnic and all the benefits they provide the cooling streets which makes a huge difference obviously if you're walking on a street with shade or without shade the birds that are able to chirp in them you know it's just the physical beauty looking at the tree it's proven to have economic benefits health benefits and so many other benefits so we got to get out there plant the trees encourage your neighbors nominate exceptional trees and do all that you can mm-hmm I also saw on your website there's something that you guys have called the carbon neutrality challenge can you tell us more about that? This is just a it's one of the many great programs that we have designed to calculate how much carbon sequestration is occurring from different trees so you could put in that you know what type of tree you have and then how big it is and how much carbon that it's storing so this is one of those benefits that we talk about and some people really love those sorts of things like how much stormwater it might save or how much carbon sequestration it gives or you know how much energy and dollars you're gonna save by having a shade tree keeping your house cool however people look at the value of trees it's not an either or it's a both and so while you may love the aesthetics or the cooling benefits other people might be much more interested in carbon sequestration and stormwater runoff so all of those metrics are useful and valuable Yeah absolutely and there's something else called the Kailua the citizen forester program as well for the Kailua branch I'm assuming Yes that's a program where we train citizen foresters is the term that we have used and it's basically going out and finding out where all the trees are so even though the city has a great program and robust and they're always short staffed and underfunded that's a zero question about that they do as good of a job as they possibly can but they don't always know 100% where all their trees are so what we do is we go out and we map those trees where are they inside of the city in the public rights of way and so to develop a database and say okay you've got 10 monkey pods on this street between here and here and they're geo located they're measured as to the size, the crown spread different metrics that we collect there and then through that we can identify the pucas where maybe a tree was cut down or fell down trees have natural lifespan so we need to replace those trees and we can identify the pucas through that so the citizen forester initiatives are getting off that's it's expanded over and we work with our partners as well and this on that one I believe is a smart tree specific and we go out into the community and teach people how to get these metrics how to upload them how to verify them with each other so you always have partners on that another great way to get involved it's expanded I believe to Manoa and to Kalihi and we'll be expanding that more as we look at our city and say how do we increase canopy coverage where we are losing coverage all the time and solutions for the street seem to be a little bit easier but you know how parking is in this city it's tough and so people are like well that tree is where I parked my car yes it may be but yeah that's also a public right of way the issues are not easy at the time but we can do the best that we can with what we've got and I think we can always do more and always look at how do we increase our canopy coverage and provide a good environment for trees to thrive in well even the amount of concrete we have because I see a lot of people what they're doing is that it's exactly the problem where there's a lot of people extended families which is not necessarily their fault it's just that we don't have that much housing here and so a small house with a lot of land will be expanded into a huge monster home and then it'll be converted into a complete concrete setting so even all the grass is gone and all the little shrubs are gone and those make a difference too for climate change and also for a runoff for instance right so that's happening a lot and I don't know if you guys are doing any work for that like the problem we're having with you know people converting their land into concrete I guess it's very hard to do anything for that in general you know and then having huge monster homes on top of a small lot well certainly our branches have become involved in that because if it's clean green beautiful sustainable and livable how do you have a livable street with no trees and no green it's stark it's bleak it's hot and like you said it's runoff and so the organization has always taken a position against encroachment on preservation land conservation land agricultural lands but also these variances to zoning that are really egregious going into neighborhoods and we understand people need places to live there's ways we can do this it's not an either or we can have quality places for people to live of all income levels without destroying our green infrastructure and we need to plan for that green infrastructure so we do testify on these things all the time sometimes we're successful and sometimes we're not it's up to all of us to decide what kind of environment do we wanna live on do we wanna live on a street with no trees can we not allow or require that the space be given to trees despite all of the other competing interests that we have exactly what you said total concrete where does that water go it goes down the street into our storm drains and it just creates a hot and bleaks streets so of course those structures we know that there's been issues in those that we don't need to get into here but essentially it's making choices collectively and individually that are gonna make the difference so we are out of time so we have to wrap it up I'm Dr. Grace O'Neill this is Healthy Planet on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series we've been talking with Winston Welch Executive Director of the Outdoor Circle thank you so much for being on the show and thanks to Michael our broadcast engineer and the rest of the crew at ThinkTech for hosting our show and thanks to you our listeners for listening I'll see you on February 17th for more of Healthy Planet on ThinkTech the show for people who care about their health and the health of our planet my special guest will be Lolita Ayala, Executive Director of the Aloha Animal Sanctuary