 Joyce Kilmer was right. I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree, a tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast, a tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray, a tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair, upon whose bosom snow has lain, who ultimately lives with rain. Trees are written by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. Joyce Kilmer, and so we're going to talk about trees today. We have two tree people. We have Jolie Wanger, and we have Waileigh, they are both from Smart Trees, Hawaii. Jolie is the Ka'ulunani, volunteer and program coordinator, technical assistant, designed an outreach person for Smart Trees Pacific, and Waileigh is the geospatial information analyst. We're going to find out how those two jobs play together. You're going to see this. Okay, welcome Jolie. Welcome, Waileigh. Thank you for having it. Nice to have you. So tell us about Smart Trees Pacific. Tell us what it does and how it connects to the government and to the public. Go first. Sure. Thirty seconds. Smart Trees Pacific is a non-profit organization, and we were actually originally founded as a friends of Hawaii's urban forest, and our role is to support the urban forestry programs and initiatives in Hawaii, and currently we manage a contract for the Ka'ulunani urban and community forestry program, which is the state program that is federally funded, and we've been actually managing that program for about more than 20 years. Yeah, 1992. Yeah, it started with my predecessor, Teresa Truman-Madriaga in 92, and we're still going at it. Yeah, all the more important in our day of concrete paving and the like. Absolutely. We talk about the canopy. The canopy is always at risk. It's at risk everywhere in the world, but it's at risk here, too. People have this nostalgic remembrance of Hawaii when Hawaii was much greener than it is today, and it's a battle that we fight. So Wiley, tell me how does geospatial analysis relate to the company and to what Jolie is doing? Oh, sure. About six, seven years ago, the U.S. Forest Service had pioneered a new way to study trees and canopies in urban areas, and we started with Baltimore, and we discovered that there's a new way to study the size of the canopy. Whenever we ask the government how much canopy they have, how many trees they have, most of the time they take a guess. So for the longest time they've been doing sampling, taking sample plots and so on that determine how many trees, 100,000, 400, 500, depends on the size of the city. And then in 2006 or 2009, around then, we started with satellites, and we finally able to map all the canopies on Oahu, from Kapolei to Kanyoe. We finished the study in 2012, and to our amazement, Honolulu had 20 percent canopy compared to other cities that have more or less than for- So it's 20 percent good? But depending what you mean by good, the prevailing expert believe 40 percent is ideal. Give me a city that's 40 percent, do you know? Baltimore? Yeah, there was one just, not off the top of my head. I would guess Portland, I would guess Portland, Oregon. Yeah, maybe. That's probably a good place. And maybe some other cities, maybe smaller cities more likely. The eastern cities tend to have more trees in their cities than the west. And also in the matter of accounting, it's important, there's no standard method. Right now we use a very strict method of urban, and other cities use less strict methods, so their number looks good. For us, we're very, very strict about being urban, and the state defines what urban means, and we just measure trees in this area. So for example, on the left and right side of H3, we don't count it. That's not urban. H3 is urban, but the hills are conservation areas. Ah, so you're only talking about the city itself as an urban area. Yes. So the policy behind all this, federal government probably has a policy that makes it want to fund what you do. What is the policy? Regrow trees. Like Johnny Appleseed, let's see some more trees, is that what it is? Well it is a way to measure success, or just kind of place it in time. So if we know our baseline is 20%, then it allows us to set a goal if we want to. What's our goal now? We can make a goal right here. The city could set a goal, and we know we could be... I'll set a goal with you right now. What do you say, Jolie? What do you say, why? 40%. 40%. What do you think, Jolie? Well I'd be more conservative, I might be more conservative and be more realistic and say, let's go for 25% or 30, and then if we can meet that, then we can increase our goal. It's a time fact, right? It is. Yes, you have to set incremental goals. And Wiley and I, we're talking about the next 10 years. But it's more complicated than that too, I bet Wei was going to get to that. Gladly, after we have done the study and we realize what 1% means, and like you and I had talked about before the show, how much does it cost to plant a single tree? And it's maybe $1,000 or $500 a tree. In five years, how big a tree will grow? And what does 1% mean? And it turns out the study done by KC trees, it costs thousands and hundreds of thousands dollars to create, to increase 1% in five years. So when we go for 20%, I would just go for Brooks with you, Jolie. So in order to have 20% growth, it's a tremendous amount of money. But the more, the aspect that's causing the most problem is that we're actually going in the opposite direction currently. We're losing trees. We're losing canopy. Yeah. So we had our data to show that. We do. We had our baseline done five years ago or so, and it was 20%. And then we repeated the study in five, after five years, and we had actually lost 4%. 4%, so it was hard to make that up, because that's a lot, as you said. Yeah. And then also if you take into account that the trees that we're losing have bigger canopies than what we would be replacing it with. And it's going to take many years for those trees to grow. So what's happening? I mean, are there thieves that come out in the night and steal the trees away? What happens to them? Why are we losing 4% of trees? That's terrible. Who's doing that to us? The funniest part was not really one person, two person, but we have many development projects. And the funniest thing was the largest decrease that came from our solar farm, which is very interesting. How interesting. Right? We support solar farms. We think solar is great. But just happened, they cleared that piece of land. But what it really meant is everybody was doing their best, doing what they do. But without some organization to oversee or look after this, no one really knew. And I cut down a tree, you cut down a tree, that's nothing, right? But actually when they come down to it, that's for two square miles we lost 4%. That's what I meant. I think we lost a lot also in the rail transit project. That's contributed. It just happened to be the timing of it, right when we did that study. I moved to Hawaii 51 years ago, and in those days there were a lot more trees. And not only in the urban area that you guys are concerned with, which was very nice by the way. It's really nice to live in an urban area where the concrete is softened by the canopy. But also on the mountains, where trees are so important for hiking and enjoying the environment, environmentalists come and they say, oh, let's have a protest about some environmental issue, but they don't go hiking. They don't see what's up there or not up there. And I remember, and I'll get off my soapbox in a minute, I remember the banyan tree in the corner of King Street and Kamoku Street. Back in the 70s, I think it was, it was a splendid tree. It was a huge tree. There was hundreds, many hundreds of years old. It was a piece of the landscape, but they were widening King Street. And it had to go, I guess, and frankly looking back, and it was a consternation and opposition to this removal of this banyan tree. But they removed it and looking back, I really wonder if they needed to. They could have made the street, you know, come around it somehow. People would have understood and accepted that. But you know, progress and concrete, concrete has value because once you build it, except for the roadways, you don't have to do anything. It lasts for hundreds of years, right? Trees, you know, you have to make sure they get watered, you have to treat them and service them, and there's a certain amount of expense going forward. Sometimes they die and it's really a headache to get rid of them after they die. So I guess you can make an argument that we should, we should pave over the place. We should make it all concrete, you know? It'll last forever that way. We won't have any expense in maintaining it, except for the streets. We will have expense in maintaining the streets. And the concrete, yeah. If you're looking for an urban environment that has a quality of life, you're really bloody better have trees, or there is no quality of life. It's just that simple. Yeah. Do you disagree with that? I do not disagree with that. I wholeheartedly agree with that. We just showed what you have brought for us about the Valiwa Tree. Yeah, yeah. Let's see some slides. We actually did this infographic, I guess it's an infographic, that was summarizing a lot of the research that was done in this area, and how many benefits that we all receive from trees on an annual basis. And this is data that's specific to Honolulu, and a study was done by some scientists out of California with the Forest Service, called the Street Tree Resource Assessment. And they took a lot of data, and they came up with a total number, which I guess is around four million dollars annually that we receive. And so they couched it all in economic terms. But when you really pull it out, you're looking at so many benefits for us in all different areas of our quality of life. It's hard to read. Yeah, it is hard. So... Tell us two or three of them. Okay. So there's the environmental benefits that everybody thinks of first when they think of trees. They help with our air quality. They help with cooling the temperatures in a lot of different ways. Including our schools for sure. And I will be happy to talk about a program that we have right now that's trying to give out grants to schools to plant more trees, because there's so many benefits that have been shown for schools in particular. So there's cooling. If you plant the tree in the right place on the campus, you're going to reduce a lot of the ambient temperature. And even if your school has air conditioning, you can reduce the amount of demand on the electrical grid to run the air conditioners. You're being so scientific, Julie. You know, I go back to Joyce Kilmer. And after this break, we're going to talk more about what Joyce Kilmer was really saying and how that applies to Hawai'i, and I'll be right back. Hi, my name is Kim Lau, and I'm the host of Hawai'i Rising. You can watch me every other Monday at 4 p.m. Hi, my name is Justine Espiritu. This is my co-host, Matthew Johnson. Every Thursday at 4 p.m., we host the Hawai'i Food and Farmers series. This is the place you can come to for insight on the perspective and history and passions of Hawai'i's farmers and all folks involved in Hawai'i's local food system. What kind of folks do we have on? So we have everyone from local farmers. We have foodies, chefs. We also have journalists, researchers, anyone who's actually working to help make Hawai'i's local food system that much better. So join us every Thursday, and tweet in the us and ask us some questions and leave your comments as well. Back live with Jolie Wanger and Lylee, they're both from SmartTree specific, which is a contractor for DLNR, looking at the canopy and organizing grants for the planting of trees in Hawai'i in urban areas, which is really interesting, when we need them in a very special way, that Joyce Kilmer understood. So we're talking in a break about Kuhio Avenue, how Jeremy Arras, to his credit, created a lot of trees along Kuhio Avenue, and he had foliage coming out into the bus lanes, I guess, or maybe Mufi Heneman just didn't like the fact that the trees were a credit to his predecessor, so he cut them down or back. And that was really an example of the hard-hearted kind of political shtick you get about the most important thing in our community, green. Green is so important for our quality of life, walk down the street, think you live in a place that's in harmony with the environment, and then they come and cut the trees down. It's like everybody makes a habit, a bad habit of cutting the tree down. What does it mean, you know, if I give you the 40% why they, that you and I would like, and she'll come along, I know she will, what kind of a city do we have then? I think we'll have a very, very nice walkable environment that you can go out and be shaded, and it's a lot of oxygen for your lungs, and peace. It just makes you feel relaxed, and you'll go out, I am with nature and my friends. It's a livable city. It comes in the hot sun, you have shade, in the rain you have canopy that protects you. I mean everything works better, your daily life is enhanced by this. To see the green, it fills your soul. That's right. Yeah, and I don't know if you've ever witnessed when a big tree is suddenly missing, and the shock that you feel, because you've become, you know, that tree is part of your life, and you don't realize until it's gone how much it, you know, has given to you, you know, in many ways, intangible ways. She's your friends, and you've become your friends. That's why she wrote the poem. She had a special relationship and appreciation of every single tree, but the sad thing is, not only in Hawaii, but the sad thing is in urban environments around the country, around the world, it's a struggle to keep the trees planted. I grew up in New York. New York had a lot of trees in the city. They went out of their way to plant trees. Every little park had a lot of central park, loaded with trees. People, Frederick Law Olmstead, designed Central Park in the 1860s. He knew what he was doing. He set this in motion, and you've got to have visionary leaders to do this. So how are we going to get to 40 percent? Well, I think it's gonna take a lot of people working together, you know, a concerted effort, and, you know, maybe the city, the mayor, to set a goal, and even if it's a modest goal to begin with, incremental, but, you know, we do our part by, you know, providing small grants to communities to plant trees or do other types of projects that improve our urban forest. Are you spending all the money you could, or is there a dearth of people asking? No, there really isn't. We could absolutely receive a lot more grants than we do. People asked? Yeah. Yeah. So how do you ask? I mean, tell them, they're right behind camera one over there, and you have your choice, your chance to tell them what to do to get on these programs. Well, if you have a project that is beneficial to the greater community, so it's in a public location where, you know, other people can access it. It doesn't have to necessarily be a park, but it has to be accessible to the public, and you can apply to us from our website. It's on the screen, I believe, and you can find us through Kulunani Urban and Community Forestry Program, if you search for it. And we have all the information there on how to apply and what types of grants that we will accept. And they're usually small grants, but for this type of project, you don't necessarily need a large grant to make a big impact. So we're talking around $10,000 or less, usually. What about protecting old trees? What about historic trees that have been around, like my banyan tree, or the one recently in Waikiki, that was not cared for, fell down? Oh, is that the kiavi? I think so, yeah. Somebody did a really nice tribute to it that I saw. It was moving. Those are our friends. They take care of us. We can speak to nature through them. And it's very sad when the landowner, or for that matter, the government doesn't attend to them. You know, if they don't mow the grass or clean the grass in front of the Iolani Palace, do you think they're attending to the trees there? I don't think so. And we have really got to get into a better frame of mind about dealing with it. I told you in the break or before about the, what is it, the willy-willy tree, which is now a threatened, going, what do you call it, going extinct here in Hawaii? Because of some wasp from Asia, little microscopic wasp, wasp kills them all. And you try and try. I had a client who had a huge big willy-willy street downtown, and they tried. They spent a lot of money trying to save it, but nobody had the science to save it, to save it against that wasp. And so ultimately it died. And there's a little plaque now where it used to live. And we've lost willy-willy trees all over the state. And I suspect that had we attended to this earlier, had we done some science on it, had we found a way to preserve that tree, care about that tree, we'd still have the tree. So it's all of us. It's not just the LNR. It's not just the legislature. It's everybody who's a property owner who has a tree on the property. And we can't be cavalier about this. And not at all. And we do have program trying to approach each of these type of landowners, private business, state and federal, and that includes military. And so all of our, we all are involved in this. And if we need to have our environment improved, we have to be part of the solution. And it's not just somebody else's problem. So our program is to help through funding, knowledge. And we want everybody out there like to contribute. We're welcome. We like to work with them. That's why we have community in our name. It's, you know, we really are a community program. And we realize it takes the whole community to, you know, have a healthy urban forest. Yeah. And to appreciate public spaces. I mean, that's a very important word. We have covered it in the architectural context many times. But this is an important compliment to that. How can you have a public space that is of comfort to the public that, you know, respite, if you will, without having trees there? And I mean, little by little, Hawaii is finding out how to do that. It's not a good idea. It doesn't work. So if we want to build public spaces that are of comfort, that make us feel, you know, in harmony with the environment, where we can say we care, we really care about the environment, we really have to put our money where our mouth is, including every landowner. You guys want to have contests, you know, we take a public space and rate them on how well they're doing in the tree department. What do you think? Yeah, I think that's a great idea. That's an interesting idea, too. Yeah. So what's going to happen going forward? You're going to continue to check the canopy. You're going to continue to make studies and see if we're going up, down, or sideways. What do you think is going to happen in reality? I think in reality, our approach is through education, and we're just getting started. Our citizen forestry program is a great success. We actually got people out exercising on the street doing inventory for us. And the best part is they are convincing the local residents, the neighbors that the importance of the trees and why the city is doing the best to help them. So that the word is out. And I was first hand, I have first hand knowledge. I was there with the citizen forest and I walked the street to Kailua and great debate and people came out of the house and tell us about their trees. Some are good and some are not so good. But we take them both and we report it to the city right away. The city came out. So that relationship really works. And I think that's a good way to move forward. Citizen participation with us. Hi, everyone. That's right. It's a question of quality of life here in East Isles. We're about out of time. But Jolie, I want to offer you a great opportunity that I myself had a little while ago. It's to read the poem here. You can read the poem and close our show and I will be touched. I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed against the earth's sweet flowing breast. A tree that looks at God all day and lifts her leafy arms to pray. A tree that may in summer wear a nest of robins in her hair. Upon whose bosom snow has lain who intimately lives with rain. Poems are written by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. And only people can plant a tree. Jolie's kilmer was right. Thank you, Jolie. Thank you so much.