Nel 2019, il sindaco Eric Garcetti ha presentato un piano ambizioso per piantare 90.000 alberi a Los Angeles entro il 2021 come parte del Green New Deal di Los Angeles.

A tal fine, ha nominato il primo ufficiale forestale della città, Rachel Malarich, a capo della Divisione forestale urbana e ha autorizzato una rete di organizzazioni no profit e "ambasciatori della comunità" per aiutare e incoraggiare i residenti a piantare alberi tanto necessari.

Ma più di un anno dopo la scadenza di Garcetti, si scopre che piantare alberi a Los Angeles è molto più difficile di quanto sembri, in particolare quando si tratta di prendere di mira quei quartieri che hanno più bisogno di copertura arborea.

Con poco più di 65.000 alberi piantati fino ad oggi, i funzionari stanno scoprendo che la loro dipendenza dai residenti della città per piantare e prendersi cura degli alberi comporta limitazioni significative:i residenti nei quartieri più poveri che non possiedono terreni possono avere difficoltà a piantare alberi, oppure incontrano problemi nella cura di nuovi alberi durante la fase critica di tre anni di insediamento.

In alcune aree, come il centro arido, i nuovi alberi vengono spesso distrutti da veicoli o vandali prima che possano maturare, mentre gli alberi più vecchi vengono abbattuti dagli sviluppatori di nuovi edifici o dalle squadre di trasporto che cercano di liberare la visuale agli incroci.

Ma questa non è la prima volta che Los Angeles ha lanciato una piantumazione di alberi su larga scala e tuttavia si è imbattuto in ostacoli. Nel 2006, il sindaco di Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa ha lanciato un programma per piantare 1 milione di alberi, insieme a New York City e Shanghai. Ma ad aprile 2013 la città ne aveva piantate poco più di 400.000.

Questa volta, Malarich ha detto di essere più preoccupata per l'aspetto dell'equità degli alberi e di dove vengono piantati piuttosto che per il numero. Nota inoltre che l'impegno di Garcetti includeva la promessa di aumentare la chioma degli alberi della città di almeno il 50% nelle aree a basso reddito entro il 2028.

"La quantità di protezioni che stiamo fornendo attraverso una maggiore copertura della chioma è più importante del numero di alberi", ha affermato Malarich.

Gli alberi forniscono una miriade di benefici ad Angelenos, tra cui la cattura del deflusso delle acque piovane e il rifornimento delle acque sotterranee, la pulizia dell'aria e il miglioramento della salute mentale. I ricercatori hanno anche scoperto che i quartieri con pochi alberi e molti marciapiedi, grandi edifici e altre superfici che assorbono il calore possono essere 10 gradi più caldi delle aree circostanti.

Even with historic drought restrictions, experts have stressed the importance of continuing to water trees and keeping them alive. During the last drought, as many as 14,000 trees in L.A. parks—about 4% of the total—may have died.

The drought restrictions implemented June 1 by the L.A. Department of Water and Power includes an exception for the hand-watering of trees, however, and should not have an adverse effect on tree health if they are followed correctly, experts said.

As priorities have changed, so have names—Million Trees LA is now called City Plants, a reflection of the emphasis on low canopy areas and maximizing the benefits of trees rather than reaching a specific number. City Plants runs a public-private partnership between the city and six nonprofits to coordinate tree planting and care throughout L.A.

But to get more trees in the ground, it's imperative to have community buy-in—the city itself doesn't do much planting directly. An estimated 90% of L.A.'s urban forest is on private property, and even street trees are often under the care of the residents who live nearby.

City Plants will give seven free trees to any L.A. resident to plant in their yard, thanks to funding from the Department of Water and Power. The trees are delivered to homes, along with stakes, ties and fertilizer pellets. City Plants tracks planting locations and monitors the trees' survival for three years—the most vulnerable period of a young tree's life.

Residents can also request a street tree—one planted in the public right of way—but must sign a Commitment to Water form promising to care for the tree for the first three to five years of its life, which means a deep watering of 10-15 gallons of water once a week by hose or bucket. After the three-year mark, the trees become the responsibility of the Urban Forestry Division.

In some cases, money from City Plants and state grants from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are able to fund the establishment care for the tree—which includes watering, adjusting stakes and ties and anything else needed to ensure survival in the first three years.

The next step, however, is to make sure the communities that need trees have access to them.

The Tree Ambassador program was created last year to develop leaders in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods and assist them in planting and caring for trees in their communities. The inaugural cohort began in September 2021 and ended this April with about 400 trees planted.

The ambassadors serve as community liaisons to help find residents who are interested in planting trees and communicate the importance of caring for neighborhood trees.

"The way we structured that program is really to amplify local leader voices," said City Plants executive director Rachel O'Leary. "And many of those local leaders living in neighborhoods that were historically disinvested—wanting to really, honestly, directly compensate them for their community organizing."

It's a model that not everyone agrees with.

"They're leaning on nonprofits to get there, they're leaning on homeowners to get to that goal (of 90,000 trees)," said Katherine McNenny, co-founder of Industrial District Green, a nonprofit focused on tree planting downtown. "That's cheating."

Giving out trees benefits homeowners who live in areas that might not need more trees, rather than a renter in a low-canopy area, especially with the three-year watering commitment, McNenny said.

"Someone in a low-income community who got a free tree from the city of L.A. a block away … how are they gonna water those trees?" McNenny said.

Though McNenny appreciates the work done by nonprofits, she believes the city itself needs to doing more direct planting and watering by city employees.

On a recent sunny Saturday morning that quickly rose to sweltering temperatures, tree ambassador Cristina Velazquez sat at a green table in Koreatown next to buckets of tree saplings.

Curious locals stopped by to ask—are you really giving away trees for free? How can I get one?

Though most of the trees were reserved for pickup, some were available for same-day adoption—coast live oaks, Canary Island pines, a crape myrtle with showy summer flowers. Velazquez warned some people to carefully consider how much room they had in their yards, because the oaks would get large.

"It is a new member of your family," Cristina Basurto, senior community engagement coordinator for the Koreatown Youth and Community Center, told people who came to take their trees home. "When you talk to them, they thrive even more."

Many people were first-time tree planters and keen on making sure their trees survived. Mulch is good, Basurto advised, but she warned folks against making "mulch volcanoes" around the base of the tree because they can foster too much moisture and cause bark rot. Pomegranates are multi-trunk trees and do particularly well with other pomegranates nearby. And guavas, well you'll have to fight with the squirrels and birds for them.

Some of the people who came to pick up trees were homeowners, though a few were renters who obtained permission from their landlords or lived in a building with a dedicated gardener.

City Plants has been holding various tree adoption events around the city, partnering with organizations like the KYCC, Los Angeles Conservation Corps and Tree People.

"A lot of the open space we have available isn't in the sidewalks; it is in their homes," Basurto said.

But working with disadvantaged communities also means meeting their immediate needs first. When KYCC goes out and offers trees in the communities it's serving, the biggest problem is often litter, which is how Velazquez got involved with the Tree Ambassador program.

When the 24-year-old from Westlake moved home after finishing college in 2020, she noticed that her neighborhood was in bad condition "in terms of public hygiene."

She started a weekly street cleanup group and learned of KYCC, which was planting trees in Westlake and also doing street cleanings. Velazquez said her cleanup group would gather one to two trucks full of litter every week.

"The next step is the tree," Basurto said.

While there's always talk of funding for the trees themselves, what's often neglected is money for establishment care, which is why community buy-in is so important, Malarich said.

One of the partners for the Tree Ambassador program is long-established environmental advocacy group Tree People, which has its own 30-year-old Community Forester Program. Its model also focuses on empowering volunteers to lead tree-planting events in their own communities.

Tree People currently has a grant to plant 1,000 trees exclusively in the Watts neighborhood and distribute thousands more trees for schools and yards, said Ariel Lew Ai Le Whitson, director of education and community. It's applying for another grant to plant 4,000 trees in South L.A.

Not everyone is always excited about getting a tree planted in their neighborhood, however. When walking on the sidewalks of L.A., it's easy to see some of the infrastructure damage caused by trees.

"A resident might have some feelings because a tree was planted there many years ago and maybe messed up their sidewalk," said Eileen Garcia, senior manager of community forestry.

As tree planting efforts continue, City Plants emphasizes its philosophy of "right tree, right place, right reason" to ensure trees aren't causing further damage in the communities they're placed in, executive director O'Leary said.

This issue is exacerbated in historically disadvantaged low canopy areas, where you often see parkways that are too narrow for trees, or trees growing in the public right of way.

Garcia said she hopes to see more funding for more drastic actions such as tearing up large stretches of concrete to create new locations for trees.

The city is currently undergoing a massive tree inventory of street trees and vacant spots, covering 500 square miles, Malarich said. An arborist will visit every tree in the public right of way and record the species, age and size of the tree. Officials hope to complete the study by next summer, and estimate they will count more than 700,000 trees.

Malarich is also overseeing an update of the recommended street tree species list, which has to take into account infrastructure and spacing, climate, and the wide range of soil types that can be found around the city.

But it all comes back to what's important to the community.

"That's part of what's so complex—we have our expert opinion based on science and data related to tree species but we also have a living piece of infrastructure that people have a strong opinion about," Malarich said.