Forest ReLeaf reminds us that trees not only provide us with incredible beauty, but they are an essential part of the earth’s ecosystem. Photo courtesy of Forrest Keeling Nursery.
by Jack Fraish
Trees are under attack in Missouri. On the edge of the once-great eastern woodland, many of these living antiques have been lost to sprawling urban development and devastating pests and diseases. Meridith Perkins can count the ways that deforestation impacts St. Louis. She is the executive director for Forest ReLeaf, an organization dedicated to planting trees and sustaining a tree canopy across Missouri.
Perkins grew up in downtown St. Louis. She didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors growing up. She said that where she lived there were “sirens and concrete,” so she spent a lot of time inside.”
Perkins expresses fond memories of the time she did spend outdoors as a kid — finding respite from the hustle and bustle of the city in parks and among the trees.
“A lot of environmentalists grew up playing in creeks and forests and such,” said Perkins. “Now I think that more of us are starting to care about environmental issues because we missed out on a natural outlet. I remember the calm of spending time in a nice green space, but for the most part, I stayed indoors growing up.”
In search of a natural outlet, Perkins decided to study forestry at the University of Missouri in Columbia. For Perkins, studying forestry was a way to better understand the green spaces that brought peace in her childhood – the natural outlet that she felt was lacking. But she felt that the forestry program at Mizzou at the time was geared toward understanding how to turn trees into profit.
“When I first started forestry school it was heavily geared toward industrial forestry which wasn’t exactly what I wanted to be doing.”
After college, Perkins found opportunities more in line with her interests, working in both the private and public sectors as an urban arborist. A few years ago, she began working with the St. Louis-based organization, Forest ReLeaf, and finally became their executive director.
“Forest ReLeaf’s mission lines up so well with the values I’ve picked up from doing forestry all these years,” Perkins noted.
Forest ReLeaf is an organization working to plant trees across Missouri. It’s providing communities and people with a connection to nature. Its operations include programs to donate trees to communities for use in public and nonprofit spaces as well as for community outreach and education programs.
“Trees can be thought of as green infrastructure,” explained Perkins. “The roots of trees slow stormwater and capture pollutants in the water, the leaves capture air pollution – we call these processes ecosystem services.”
Some of these ecosystem services are very easy to track. For example, during hot summers buildings that receive lots of sunlight use more energy than those shaded by trees, as shaded buildings don’t run as much air conditioning.
Loss of green infrastructure also has impacts on our health.
“In the last decade, we’ve seen research come out that is overwhelmingly connecting positive health to quality nature. There’s research that connects healthy tree canopy to higher birth rates. One study found a correlation between the loss of tree canopy to higher rates of cardiovascular disease,” Perkins said. “That’s one subset of health, but there is another health subset and that is mental health.”
As Perkins discovered in the city parks of her childhood, natural spaces tend to ameliorate anxiety and create a sense of calm. She also pointed out that trees and greenery encourage people to go outside and participate in physical recreation. There are many ways that a natural outlet helps people live better lives.
“The research shows that trees create a sense of community,” she explained. “They create a gathering place that promotes safety a lot more than a place that lacks greenery and looks abandoned.”
The sense of community created by green spaces also helps explain why natural spaces seem to produce economic benefits.
“Now we’re finding that people will actually travel farther to shop at a place that has trees and a nice landscape,” said Perkins. “Not only will they travel farther – they will stay longer. People are more comfortable in these spaces, so they stay longer and spend more.”
Trees create healthy environments and cohesive communities. Loss of trees has many negative impacts. But in recent years, Missouri has lost much of its tree canopy.
Often this has been a result of our land development patterns. Sprawling car-centered urban areas need to clear trees to make way for roads, parking lots, and large lawns that are treeless in many areas. Tree loss has also been caused by ecological factors, such as disease or invasive pests. These threats are especially worrying in areas with low tree diversity, where attacks on just one species can wipe out a majority of trees in the area.
Forest ReLeaf’s work aims to rebuild our green infrastructure and provide us with a natural outlet. Its “Communitree” and “Emergency ReLeaf” programs donate trees to communities for use in public land and nonprofit projects.
With experienced and passionate arborists like Meridith Perkins to advise communities on what trees to plant, residents can be confident that their leafy project will not only be achieved, but that the results will be green and sustainable.
Environmental Echo 