Sacramento wants to add more trees in under-covered areas. Here’s why, and how to get involved

Sacramento has long been known as the “City of Trees.” But that title isn’t shared equally.

Some neighborhoods, like Elmhurst and Land Park, are particularly leafy. But others, especially in North and South Sacramento, are much more bare. That brings with it a host of other social and environmental impacts. 

The city now has a new plan for increasing its tree canopy, and it’s asking for the public’s help.

Sacramento has a new plan to grow the city’s tree canopy and wants your feedback

The “Urban Forest Plan” calls for nearly doubling Sacramento’s tree coverage by 2045, with priority given to neighborhoods with the lowest tree coverage.

Public comment is being accepted through June 21, and the City Council could approve the plan this summer.

Sacramento Tree Foundation Executive Director Dr. Jessica Sanders and Director of Education and Community Engagement Garrett Werner spoke with CapRadio Insight host Vicki Gonzalez about how they are working with the city, as well as the steps needed to obtain “tree canopy equity.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Interview highlights

What is the Sacramento Tree Foundation? 

Sanders: We're a non-profit community-based organization that does everything having to deal with trees. So if you have wood in your house, you could get that from us. If you like taking hikes, we go for hikes and collect acorns. So we do everything that has to do with trees from seed to slab.

We have a long partnership with SMUD where anyone in Sacramento County can get up to 10 free trees a year that are professionally sited by our staff. We do reforestation efforts throughout the county. But really, if you think about trees you think about us. So if a tree comes down in the Sacramento region, it comes to us and we mill it, kiln dry and make it available for sale or wood donations.

What is an urban forest?

Sanders: You can just think about trees where people live and work. So that's really what we're thinking about. And as much as I'd love everyone to have trees on the top of their mind, I'd love for us to be a city where the trees are just well taken care of and equitably distributed, so you don't have to necessarily think about what side of the street you're walking on. It's cool and comfortable no matter where you are.

What problems do trees solve?

Werner: Well, they start by giving so many environmental benefits to us. That's where a lot of people think about, that is in front of their mind.

So we're talking about reducing energy use by cooling homes, cleaning the air, reducing water runoff, sequestering that carbon. But they also benefit our communities by giving spaces for people to meet, allowing people to be able to walk and just beautifying our neighborhoods and making our places more livable and lovable.

Sanders: If you think about public health, even a tree next to a bus stop is going to make it more enjoyable for someone to be there. Looking at nature or trees, even if you're not actively thinking about it, will lower your cortisol levels, lower your stress hormones, lower your blood pressure, and they'll help you relax. 

The plan for Sacramento is to increase tree coverage nearly twofold from 19%, which currently is average citywide, to 35% in about 20 years. How ambitious is this?

Sanders: So it's pretty aggressive. I will say, you don't meet goals by setting something you can do. You want to be very ambitious and bold. … If you looked at Sacramento from above, 19% of it is covered currently by trees. Adding more trees is a lot of trees, and when you think about the size of trees we're planting, a tree that we planted 20 years ago is going to be much bigger today than the true plant tomorrow.

If you're thinking about that picture, you know, we're an enthusiastic partner with the city, but you also have to take into fact what people do with their land, right? So this isn't just a goal for the city,this is a goal for everyone. It's through partnership, it's through community groups. It's through neighborhoods. It's through businesses. It's through the state and the city and park districts and all of us together coming to increase trees. 

Why do some neighborhoods — I think of South Sacramento North Sacramento — have less tree coverage?

Werner: Some of it starts all the way back with how the community was designed, right? If you're putting more streets or highways and you're creating that kind of environmental injustice [by] segregating those things off, it makes it harder to plant trees. If you think about some of the areas that have more tree coverage, they have a robust amount of street trees. And that [space for trees] wasn't included in some of that design with some of these communities. Think about your streets where you have the sidewalk and then space for trees and then the houses. There's some areas that don't have that. It's just the sidewalk going straight to the house. 

The other aspect of it is there are areas that are more industrial, so they have more industrial space. As the city grew, the idea of planting these trees was left behind, and so you do have these areas that have very mature tree canopies and other areas that don't. And even with the work we have been doing as Jessica pointed out, trees we planted even just a couple years ago, their canopy is making a difference. But it's going to take a number of years, there's that lag before you start seeing it.

Now that the public can actually be part of this conversation, what do you want them to know?

Werner: I think for me the first thing would just be that you need to be engaged, trying to get the word out there and make your comments heard. Look over the document, make those suggestions. The city is not going to know what your input is unless you give it to them. And that this is a whole community effort. It's not just the city. It's not just us, but it's those communities as well and being involved in that is really important.

What opportunities are there to be involved in the conversation?

Sanders: Really, I will applaud the city, they're trying to make this as accessible for people as possible. There's a telephone survey, there's community meetings throughout the city, there's an online form that you can just fill out. And I would say as the Tree Foundation, we're always happy to hear from people and help break down some of those barriers. The only way that we can make big drastic changes to make our city even more livable and lovable as we face climate change is to make big changes. We can't do the same thing that got us here.