When I saw the word 'forest' affiliated with Temecula, I was intrigued.
The City of Temecula, in partnership with Dudek, hosted an Urban Forest Summit which provided us community members a space to share our thoughts about the opportunities and challenges relating to Temecula’s urban forest.The City, with funds provided by Proposition 68, is developing an Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP) to guide the management and maintenance of our trees. It wants to help the community lower utility costs, create vibrant and diverse outdoor spaces, clean the air we breathe, and save the water we cherish. The City believes we can accomplish all of this with the help of our trees!"The main goal of the UFMP is to make sure every resident here lives in a neighborhood that is healthy and safe. Achieving this, in part, depends on the City’s trees and their ability to help create and maintain a resiliency that will continue to thrive with new and changing environmental conditions and challenges."What we learned was the status of our current forest. The facts came after a city-wide tree inventory was conducted last year. I found the numbers interesting. There are 30,937 publicly managed trees, consisting of 170 species. The City's canopy covers 10.9%. City parks account for 12% of the canopy and have an average canopy cover of 16%. There are 3,691 vacant planting sites awaiting trees and 1,859 stumps of past trees. And the most common species is the Mondell Pine.
We heard a great deal about the importance of canopies. Improving a city’s urban tree canopy can have numerous benefits, including reducing summer peak temperatures and air pollution, enhancing property values, providing wildlife habitat, providing aesthetic benefits, and improving social ties among neighbors. A robust tree canopy can also attract businesses and residents. That is why the UFMP seems so important to me.We were at the summit to give our input. We broke into groups with a great deal of tree talk. We were certainly a bunch of tree lovers which was fun.The consultants really wanted to know where residents wanted more trees and asked for our advice as to how to go about getting the community more involved.While I didn't walk away feeling informed, I did leave feeling that my opinions were heard, and that Temecula is moving in the right direction regarding making the city greener. I was encouraged and it was a fun night out.“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts,
as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees,
that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson
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