Branching Out - Volunteers help the city’s urban forestry staff track the city’s 200,000 trees

Branching Out
Volunteers help the city’s urban forestry staff track the city’s 200,000 trees — with technology.
by Brandon Walters
May 26, 2004

On the morning of May 20, tree lovers gather on Monument Avenue’s median. Overhead the sky is colorless except for the green spread of maples.

That the canopies stand out is fitting for the kickoff of Richmond’s new tree inventory program. Volunteers and city tree specialists aim to track 200,000 trees in three years.

Karl Pokorny (left), urban forestry manager
for the City of Richmond, demonstrates the
handheld computer being used to inventory
Fan trees. Funding for the inventory came
from the Historic Monument Avenue and
Fan District Foundation. With Pokorny
are Dr. Wyatt Beasley, a resident of
Monument Avenue,
and Councilman Bill Pantele.

The inventory will help the city plan tree maintenance, says Karl Pokorny, urban forestry manager for the Urban Forestry Division of the city of Richmond’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. “It’s an excellent budgeting tool,” he says.

The information gathered — location, species, size, health status — replaces an out-of-date inventory the city compiled a decade ago. Since then, the city estimates its stock of street and park trees has grown by 33 percent despite Isabel’s devastation. The city’s urban forestry staff of 31 can care for only 3,100 or so of the 200,000 trees. And Pokorny says no money has been budgeted for new trees for 10 years. Neighborhood groups have taken up the slack.

Some city officials and residents say the surge of investment and widespread construction throughout Richmond makes attention to green space, particularly the appearance and health of trees, crucial to attracting new people and business to the area.

Volunteer Laura Cameron and her neighbors with the Historic Monument Avenue and Fan District