Tree Canopy Restoration Project aims to restore Pensacola trees with power of volunteers
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Kelly Hagen's name.
Promoting the restoration of Pensacola's tree canopy across the entire city is the goal of the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project, which started by planting nearly 90 trees earlier this month.
The Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project is tapping into volunteers willing to take on the planting and care of a tree and they've had no shortage of help. Nearly 50 volunteers turned out to plant dozens of trees in Pensacola neighborhoods on Dec. 2, and the result was 88 trees planted at a cost of $62.50 per tree – much lower than anything the city can match using contractors.
Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project was awarded a $5,500 grant out of the city's Tree Planting Trust fund by the Pensacola City Council in September. The effort was organized by members of the Council of Neighborhood Associations Presidents of Pensacola (CNAPP) and arose out of a successful project in 2022 of the East Pensacola Heights Neighborhood Association.
Unlike previous tree plantings, both the East Pensacola Heights project and the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Projects aimed to plant trees both on public property and within 20 feet of the right-of-way on private property.
The city determined that planting a tree close enough to the public right-of-way gave a public benefit by shading sidewalks and roads, so city dollars could be used for the trees.
Using volunteers can be more cost-effective for the number of trees, said Kelly Hagen, president of CNAPP and a member of the Canopy Committee of the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project.
"There's a dual benefit there: you're getting more trees in the ground for less money, and you're also engaging interested citizens and encouraging the culture of environmental stewardship in order to ultimately expand our aging canopy and create a more resilient and beautiful future," Hagen said.
Both Hagen and the Citizens Tree Canopy Project won CivicCon awards earlier this month for environmental work in the community.
The East Pensacola Heights Neighborhood Association used a Tree Planting Trust Fund for volunteers to plant trees at the cost of $109 per tree. After a year, 89% of the trees survived, resulting in a total cost per live tree of $122.
That cost was significantly cheaper ? and more successful ? than a city-contracted planting out of the trust fund in 2021 in East Pensacola Heights Lions Park, which cost $166 per tree and had a survival rate of 62% after a year, leading to a total cost per live tree of $268, according to the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project's presentation to City Council in September.
"The East Pensacola Heights tree planting project was kind of a pilot project, and so we built upon their model that they use, and kind of decided what worked and what didn't work and tweaked some things for this project," Hagen said.
Chelsea Mahan, an East Pensacola Heights resident and member of the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project, said the neighborhood lost a lot of its canopy in Hurricane Sally.
"I was walking around and just noticing we lost a lot of trees during Sally, and what a lack there was of just the beauty and also the shade, honestly, when I was walking," Mahan said. "So I just wanted to do something about it."
Through the Citizens Tree Canopy Restoration Project, the idea that started with East Pensacola Heights is being tried in East Hill, North Hill, Sanders Beach, the Westside Garden District and Broadview Farms, Hagen said.
Fifty-two volunteers from those neighborhoods turned out on a rainy morning on Dec. 2 to learn how to plant and care for the 88 trees they planted that weekend.
Hagen said they will report back to the city in a year on the condition of the trees and hope to plant new ones next year under a similar grant.
"We can simply plant a lot of trees if we rely on citizens to care for the trees," Hagen said.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola tree canopy restoration project relies on volunteers
