1As the season transitions from summer to autumn, it is very important that the Department of Parks & Recreation prune many of the trees in the city’s parks and along its streets.
While every single tree cannot be pruned, there are those that are in serious need of pruning to reduce the risk of injury to people or damage to property. Also, those trees that are dead or dying need to be removed as quickly as possible.
While the city is dealing with a fiscal crisis, it is important to maintain the trees in our parks and along our streets. There are over 1 million trees within the city and its parks, and some of them have stood for over 100 years. They give us needed shade in the summer and beautiful, colorful mosaics of changing leaves in the fall. Our evergreen trees grace us with their winter beauty when snow accumulates upon them, adding to the festive feeling of every holiday season.
Trees are our cathedrals of nature, soaring high above streets and homes. They also give off oxygen and take in carbon dioxide, which cleanses the air, and also retain soil from eroding on the sides of our roadways and hills. Let us work to maintain our trees so that they can be enjoyed by many future generations of New Yorkers.
John Amato
Fresh Meadows
Greetings John. Thank you for your letter on drawing attention to the care and maintenance of our most important and only natural resource and asset- our urban trees. And of course the mayor has elevated the status of the urban tree in his Mayoral PlaNYC 2030 by emphasizing the role of trees in solving many of our societal infrastructure problems. I assumed that to mean large established trees that provide a myriad of benefits and services to our communities.
While I agree wholeheartedly that street tree care by tree branch pruning is most critical for the safety of the general public passing beneath, just how that pruning occurs and by whom is equally critical. Tree care involves the application of the art and science of arboriculture. With that the approach to tree pruning should only be allowed to occur by those skilled, trained, fully vetted and ISA certified to prove the minimal skillset needed for the task.
But instead and noted recently by their tree pruning contract in the Kissena Park area, Central Forestry authorized a tree trimming firm whose workers proved to be clueless about arboriculture-were not vetted, were uncertified and left without a knowledgeable Forester or consultant to provide reasonable tree by tree supervision. Where tree branches were pruned that didn’t require pruning, when they did it was in excess by an approach to remove as much as possible.
What is troubling by this is the pursuit of sub standard arboricultural considerations despite the high status and importance that our public trees have been given. Its one thing to call for more care for the tree asset, but that goes hand in hand with the expertise needed to perform and carry out that caring- clearly excluded in current City tree pruning contracts.