TreePeople

Last updated

TreePeople
NicknameTP
Founded1973
FounderAndy Lipkis
FocusConservation service, environmental education
Location
Area served
Los Angeles
Website https://www.treepeople.org/

TreePeople is an educational and training environmental advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, California. [1] The TreePeople organization advocates and works to support sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, volunteer community-based action, and advocacy. [2]

Contents

Organization history

Andy Lipkis - Founder/President of TreePeople since 1973 Andywikipedia2.jpg
Andy Lipkis - Founder/President of TreePeople since 1973

TreePeople was founded in Los Angeles in 1973 by an 18-year-old activist Andy Lipkis. [2] Lipkis and a group of other teenagers began planting trees three years prior at summer camp in the San Bernardino Mountains. [2] Lipkis heard that smog from Los Angeles was drifting up to the mountains and killing the forest. He rallied his fellow campers, tore up a parking lot, and planted smog-tolerant trees. [2]

Lipkis served as president of TreePeople for many years and still serves as a Board Member. [2] Cindy Montañez became the Chief Executive Officer in 2016. The organization works with thousands of members and volunteers and more than 50 staff members, operating out of the Center for Community Forestry located with-in 45-acre Coldwater Canyon Park. [3]

The TreePeople organization focuses on increasing Greater Los Angeles' urban forest by supporting people in planting and caring for trees at homes, on school yards, and in neighborhoods. It also supports volunteers in restoring damaged local forest ecosystems in the Santa Monica Mountains, San Gabriel Mountains and San Bernardino Mountains. [4]

Beyond planting and caring for trees, TreePeople works to promote urban watershed management, using green infrastructure to address critical urban water issues.[ citation needed ] It educates and advocates for water conservation and stormwater capture in the urban landscape for Los Angeles' long-term sustainability.[ citation needed ]

Since its founding, the TreePeople staff have gone on to plant more than two million trees in the Los Angeles area and have developed one of the nation's largest environmental education programs. [ citation needed ] A recent program is T.R.E.E.S. – Transagency Resources for Environmental and Economic Sustainability - demonstrating the feasibility and facilitates the implementation of integrated urban ecosystem management to increase the health and sustainability of our cities.[ citation needed ]

Accomplishments[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forestry</span> Science and craft of managing woodlands

Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests and woodlands for associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. The science of forestry has elements that belong to the biological, physical, social, political and managerial sciences. Forest management plays an essential role in the creation and modification of habitats and affects ecosystem services provisioning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern California</span> American geographic and cultural region

Southern California is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area and also the Inland Empire. The region generally contains ten of California's 58 counties: Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Angeles River</span> River in Los Angeles County, California, US

The Los Angeles River, historically known as Paayme Paxaayt by the Tongva and the Río Porciúncula by the Spanish, is a major river in Los Angeles County, California. Its headwaters are in the Simi Hills and Santa Susana Mountains, and it flows nearly 51 miles (82 km) from Canoga Park through the San Fernando Valley, Downtown Los Angeles, and the Gateway Cities to its mouth in Long Beach, where it flows into San Pedro Bay. While the river was once free-flowing and frequently flooding, forming alluvial flood plains along its banks, it is currently notable for flowing through a concrete channel on a fixed course, which was built after a series of devastating floods in the early 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Gabriel Mountains</span> Mountain range of the Transverse Ranges in California, United States

The San Gabriel Mountains are a mountain range located in northern Los Angeles County and western San Bernardino County, California, United States. The mountain range is part of the Transverse Ranges and lies between the Los Angeles Basin and the Mojave Desert, with Interstate 5 to the west and Interstate 15 to the east. The range lies in, and is surrounded by, the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests, with the San Andreas Fault as its northern border.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban forestry</span> Land use management system in which trees or shrubs are cared or protected for well-being

Urban forestry is the care and management of single trees and tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the urban environment. Urban forestry involves both planning and management, including the programming of care and maintenance operations of the urban forest. Urban forestry advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure. Urban foresters plant and maintain trees, support appropriate tree and forest preservation, conduct research and promote the many benefits trees provide. Urban forestry is practiced by municipal and commercial arborists, municipal and utility foresters, environmental policymakers, city planners, consultants, educators, researchers and community activists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angeles National Forest</span> National forest in California, United States

The Angeles National Forest (ANF) of the U.S. Forest Service is located in the San Gabriel Mountains and Sierra Pelona Mountains, primarily within Los Angeles County in southern California. The ANF manages a majority of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument.

The Green Belt Movement (GBM) is an indigenous grassroots organization in Kenya that empowers women through the planting of trees. It is one of the most effective and well-known grassroots organisations addressing the problem of global deforestation. Professor Wangari Maathai established the organization in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). GBM's successes in forest conservation, education, and women's economic empowerment have gained the organisation worldwide acclaim. It is also noted for its advocacy of human rights, democratisation of access to public lands, and environmental justice issues such as the role of women's traditional ecological knowledge in addressing environmental degradation and desertification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Bernardino Valley</span> Valley in California, United States

An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose ecosystems are also inherited from wilderness leftovers, urban forests often lack amenities like public bathrooms, paved paths, or sometimes clear borders which are distinct features of parks. Care and management of urban forests is called urban forestry. Urban forests can be privately and publicly owned. Some municipal forests may be located outside of the town or city to which they belong.

American Forests is a 501(c)(3) non-profit conservation organization, established in 1875, and dedicated to protecting and restoring healthy forest ecosystems. The current headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social forestry in India</span>

Social forestry is the management and protection of forests and afforestation of barren and deforested lands with the purpose of helping environmental, social and rural development. The term social forestry was first used in 1976 by The National Commission on Agriculture, when the government of India aimed to reduce pressure on forests by planting trees on all unused and fallow lands. It was intended as a democratic approach to forest conservation and usage, maximizing land utilization for multiple purposes.

Friends of the Urban Forest (FUF) is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that plants and maintains trees within the city of San Francisco and its surroundings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monterey County reforestation</span>

The Monterey County reforestation refers to efforts in Monterey County, California, to preserve the county's pine forests and urban environment. This one county boasts the native Monterey Pine ecosystem; one of the rarest forest ecosystems in the world. Only a few thousand acres of these endemic trees exist in four locations along the Pacific Ocean on the Central Coast of California. The city of Monterey itself maintains more than 19,000 trees in parks and along streets, as well as about 300 acres (1.2 km2) of Monterey Pine forests.

The Million Tree Initiative refers to the ongoing environmental projects that multiple cities have individually committed to, aimed at expanding urban forestry through the planting of one million trees. Cities that are known to be currently involved in this initiative are: Los Angeles, Denver, New York City, Shanghai, London, Ontario, and Amherst, New York. A common motive shared between these participating cities is, according to their mission statements, the reduction of carbon dioxide in the air to reduce the effects of global warming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California montane chaparral and woodlands</span> Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregion in California, United States

The California montane chaparral and woodlands is an ecoregion defined by the World Wildlife Fund, spanning 7,900 square miles (20,000 km2) of mountains in the Transverse Ranges, Peninsular Ranges, and Coast Ranges of southern and central California. The ecoregion is part of the larger California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, and belongs to the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urban reforestation</span> Planting of trees in urban environments

Urban reforestation is the practice of planting trees, typically on a large scale, in urban environments. It may also include urban horticulture and urban farming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sand to Snow National Monument</span> National monument in California, United States

Sand to Snow National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located in San Bernardino County and northern Riverside County, Southern California.

Stephanie Pincetl is an American academic specializing in the intersection of urban policy and the environment, particularly in California. She is the Director of the UCLA Center for Sustainable Urban Systems in Los Angeles.

References

  1. CORWIN, MILES (December 25, 1991). "TreePeople--an Idea That Keeps on Growing". Los Angeles Times.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Williams, Lena (March 16, 1995). "In Los Angeles, A Time for Planting". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved January 10, 2022.
  3. KOENENN, CONNIE (July 20, 1999). "The Green Team". Los Angeles Times.
  4. MOFFET, PENELOPE (December 17, 1988). "The Green Keepers : In Their 'Magic Forest,' a Group of Idealists Nurture and Teach". Los Angeles Times.