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.”
Environmental Echo 