Update: the 2 Tree Challenge for Tucson

The day Mayor Regina Romero took office was the day she issued the Million Tree Initiative for Tucson. Her goal for the city: plant one million new trees in Tucson by 2030 to combat climate change. No doubt, she hoped that all the city would end up looking like tree-lined Scott Avenue, above, in downtown Tucson.

The idea of planting trees along city streets and in parks and residential gardens isn’t new and isn’t even new in Tucson. For years Tucson Electric Power has been offering–and still does–super-bargain trees for $5 to anyone who wants to plant them.

The historic Catalina Vista neighborhood, above, offers a great example of tree-lined streets. After monsoon rains, Tucson looks surprisingly green and leafy.

But Mayor Romero’s Initiative gave extra impetus to the tree planting effort. Then some local math geek pointed out that a Million Trees worked out to be 274 new trees planted every day. Whoa. That suddenly sounds like a huge number of trees. Particularly when most of the tree-planting is done by ordinary Tucsonans on weekends.

A Tree Czar named

Keeping the Million Trees goal in sight, the City of Tucson established the Urban Forestry Program and named Nicole Gillett, left, to head it. Local environmental group Tucson Clean and Beautiful encouraged more volunteers to plant more trees. Tucson Power has kept providing discounts for trees.

There is even some discussion of the City of Tucson going into the tree growing business which is a very bad idea in my opinion. Let private growers grow trees. The city’s efforts should go more to items like fixing potholes in the streets.

And while in the 2 years since this Initiative began thousands of trees have been planted — especially in lower income neighborhoods–the Million Trees seemed to be more aspirational than doable.

New Math to the rescue

Another math whiz has come to the rescue, however. Instead of 274 trees per day, think of the Million Trees as “2 Trees for Each Tucsonan.” Here is how it would work: the current population of Tucson is 547,131. If each person planted 2 trees–something that wouldn’t take more than an hour or two on a weekend–there would immediately be 1,094,262 new trees in the city. Mission Accomplished. Goal Reached — even if a handful of slackers don’t make an effort to plant their 2 trees. And in the remaining time until 2030, all those trees would be growing taller and shadier and absorbing more CO2.

Which trees are a bargain

Inspired now? Well, you can run out to a nursery today and spend $100+ on a tree and plant it right away. Or you can wait until September 6th to order a $5 tree from Tucson Electric Power. They will email info to you about where and when to pick up your trees and/or shrubs. You can order as many as 3 so it’s a good idea to consider which of these you want to plant before you call. NOTE: the trees and shrubs available change from month to month.

• Mulga
• Sweet Acacia
• Desert Willow
• Chitalpa
• Arizona Ash
• Native Mesquite
• Pomegranate
• Southern Live Oak
• Chinese Elm
• Cold Hardy Mulga
• Mexican Bird of Paradise
• Desert Hackberry

I hope this inspires you and inspires the City to declare one weekend this Fall as the “2 Trees for Every Tucsonan” day. It could really accelerate tree planting and help slow climate change that is already happening.