Planning for the End-of-Life of Urban Trees

Arborists in California are developing a program to harvest and replace urban trees as they reach the end of their lives. As Noah Haggerty notes in an article in Governing, the project will prevent trees from falling onto and damaging homes or power lines while providing the state with a source of lumber.

Leaders at the Conservation Corps of Long Beach, which runs the current program, want to see it expand with more resources. “Right now, they’re working on and off with some borrowed equipment, but [executive director Dan Knapp] wants to see a crew of corps members dedicated to the project full time, with their own mill and kiln to dry the wood, and a storefront to sell it — all located on the same plot.” Trees milled by the Conservation Corps have already been used in homes and musical instruments.

Managing urban forests involves mapping every tree, understanding their conditions and ages, and knowing where trees are at risk from storms, pests, or encroachment, but such efforts require massive outlays of manual work. Experts say urban trees could replace as much as 10 percent of annual lumber needs in the United States, but many are currently being chopped up for mulch, reducing their carbon sequestration abilities.