American Forests: How Trees Can Boost the US Economy

How Can Trees Boost the US Economy? This episode of Big Blend Radio's 4th Tuesday "Tree Talk" Show focuses on how achieving Tree Equity would sustain 3.8 million jobs. Featured guests from American Forests, the nation's oldest conservation organization, include Jad Daley - President & CEO, Ian Leahy - VP Of Urban Forestry, and Sarah Anderson - Director of Career Pathways.

Tree Equity Score combines socioeconomic status, existing tree cover, population density and other information for 150,000 neighborhoods and 486 metropolitan areas to determine whether locations have enough trees to provide optimal health, economic and climate benefits. 

Achieving Tree Equity nationwide requires planting 522 million trees, coast to coast, in metropolitan areas (places with 50,000+ people). Doing so would sustain 3.8 million jobs and annually absorb 9.3 million tons of carbon – the equivalent of taking 92 million cars off the roads. As the trees mature, they would mitigate 56,613 tons of particle pollution annually.

Planting and taking care of trees can create jobs all along the urban forestry supply pipeline, from digging holes to taking care of trees to creating wood furniture, plus numerous adjacent jobs held by people who support these workers (i.e., tool manufacturers, restaurants, shippers, etc).Trees also lower utility costs by shading buildings in the summer and blocking wind in the winter.

Learn more: https://www.americanforests.org/ and https://www.treeequityscore.org/

Special thank you to fine art nature photographer Margot Carrera for sponsoring this episode - see: https://www.carrerafineartgallery.com/