Feds spend big on urban tree-planting in Michigan. Will residents get a say?

In a second round of money for urban forests, the U.S. Forest Service is visiting cities around the country to talk about more than one billion dollars has been awarded. Michigan is getting 33 million dollars of that.

There’s concern, though, about whether the neighborhoods getting those trees will have any say in what’s planted and where.

Ben Jealous is the national executive director of the Sierra Club. He’s traveling with U.S. Forest officials to talk about the urban forestry money. In Lansing, they held a presentation under a tree at Ferris Park, a couple of blocks north of the Michigan Capitol.

“The Biden administration has made a historic investment in rebuilding urban tree cover exactly at the time when we need it most. Communities with more trees aren't just more beautiful, they're safer,” Jealous said.

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By safer, he means trees can help mitigate climate change-fueled heat waves. Urban areas with no trees can be several degrees hotter than areas with trees.

While more than a billion dollars for trees sounds like a lot of money, when you spread it across the nation, it’s just the beginning of an effort to reforest urban areas.

“I think this money can serve as a catalyst. You know, get it kickstarted out in these various communities. And the thing is, what's so important it's going to underserved communities whereby there hasn't been any real interest nor money to do anything there,” said Homer Wilkes, the U.S. Forest Service’s under secretary for natural resources and environment.

Some forestry experts believe urban tree planting is not something federal, state, or local governments have always handled well in underserved, underprivileged neighborhoods.

Bert Cregg is a professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University. The way he explained the dilemma sounded a little like that old Ronald Reagan chestnut about the nine most terrifying words: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

“’We're here to plant a tree.’ And yet, many of the residents didn't want the trees," Cregg said. "A lot of this gets back, and it goes generations, right? There's a general distrust of governments, of programs, of things like this in these neighborhoods. And a lot of it is because they're not empowered, they're not being included from the ground level up.”

In 2019, a study that was widely carried by news media, looked at that issue. Christine Carmichael is with Fair Forests Consulting, based in Lansing. She was the author of that study. The research was based in Detroit and she interviewed people about the government offering free trees.

“Many people that turn down trees indicated to me that the trees in their neighborhood had not been very well cared for, and that they had tried to get city trees cared for, pruned that, that kind of thing for decades and hadn't really had much success,” she explained.

Many felt the large trees that were planted decades ago were now a financial and personal threat.

“Because they hadn't been adequately maintained, they were a risk for people with branches, large branches potentially falling during storms,” Carmichael said.

In part, because of that study, many government outlets have been trying to do better.