Street trees deserve protection

On Dec. 16, 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont issued Executive Order 21-3, designed to reduce carbon emissions by enacting 23 recommendations from the Governor’s Council on Climate Change report.

This is an excellent next step but it fails to address the critical importance of protecting the state’s local communities’ treescapes. Our street trees are the trees all residents interact and live with. Trees are essential workers in this climate crisis, sequestering carbon 24/7 while producing the oxygen essential for life. Street trees clean our air, fight the heat island effect, reduce flooding, beautify our neighborhoods, reduce road rage and positively impact emotional and physical health, all benefits that are especially needed in our vulnerable communities.

Our street trees are a critical contributor to the quality of life in our communities. They work along with our forests as our greatest natural asset in the fight against climate change.

DEEP Chair Katie Dykes described the executive order as a “whole government approach.” A whole government approach must include calling upon the public utilities and the Department of Transportation to change their tree-pruning and removal practices in our communities. These practices are destroying the ability of our trees to naturally provide their healing benefits, and help us in our fight against climate change.

Electric utility companies and the DOT are fostering an unhealthy fear of trees among residents and are adding to the climate crisis we are experiencing through many of their policies and public statements. Trees are victims of the storms, not the cause. Focusing on tree location regardless of their health and removing or aggressively pruning healthy trees, while ignoring dead and diseased trees, makes the remaining system weaker and even more vulnerable. A change in their policies and practices is essential to the health of our most basic infrastructure and all life that depends on it. The utilities and DOT must change their approach and include replacing healthy trees they remove.

DOT and the electric utilities have a responsibility to do the least amount of harm possible to the trees, while safely providing their services to the public. It's essential that there be a course correction on how trees are viewed, cared for, and valued by these entities and our society in general.

We cannot effectively address equity and environmental justice without taking steps to increase and better protect our street trees.