Trees are magnificent gifts of creation that enrich our lives beyond comprehension.
Their splendid canopy reduces the heat of a summer's day and provides shelter and warmth from the winter's wind.
Trees are the lungs of the planet, providing life-giving oxygen and absorbing the carbon dioxide that threatens the stability of our climate.
Trees are a living link to our past, providing a compact between generations. The oldest living trees are California’s giant sequoia redwoods. Soaring hundreds of feet into the air, many of these ancient giants are more than 3,000 years old, dating from the time of the Mayans and the pharaohs.
Today’s sequoias are distant relatives of trees that existed over 100 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
Trees keep us rooted to the ground and yet they encourage us to look skyward to the heavens and to possibilities that we can only imagine. It is the tiniest and most fragile new growth that reaches the furthest and extends the life of the trees into the heavens above.
Social and Community Benefits
“I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree,” wrote poet Joyce Kilmer. Trees help to beautiful our neighborhoods and enrich our communities in countless ways.
Trees:
- Encourage open air activities
- Provide shade and sanctuary and reduce stress in urban environments
- Moderate the effects of the sun, wind and rain
- Soften cityscapes and offer privacy
- Provide protection from the sun’s UV rays
-Reduce levels of domestic violence and foster safer, more sociable neighborhood environments
- Help to absorb high-frequency noise
- Create a sense of place and belonging
- Provide outdoor classrooms
- Inspire creativity and spirituality
- Bring people together to walk, ride bikes and enjoy their neighbourhoods. Local tree plantings promote a sense of community and ownership
Calm traffic
Help heal. Hospital patients have been shown to recover from surgery more quickly and require less medication when their hospital room offered a view of trees.
Environmental Benefits
The environmental benefits of trees are substantial.
• In one year, a single tree can offset the carbon dioxide produced by a car driving 41,600 kilometers
• An acre of trees can store 1.6 tons of carbon annually
• Trees also:
Filter toxic pollutants from the air with their leaves and from ground water with their roots.
Help to reduce flooding
Improve water quality by slowing runoff and trapping, using or breaking down pollutants
Reduce soil erosion
Provide fallen leaves to help enrich the soil and provide a home for micro-organisms
Improve air quality by filtering dust, absorbing ozone, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, airborne ammonia and heavy metals
Enrich the atmosphere with oxygen
Provide shelter for wildlife
Economic Benefits
Trees effectively help to moderate temperature extremes and reduce heating and cooling costs. But the economic benefits don’t stop there. One study showed that for every dollar spent on trees, the return on investment to the community was three dollars worth of benefits.
Three trees strategically planted around your home can reduce heating costs 10 to 30%, and cooling costs by 10 to 50%
For every 5% of tree cover area added to a community, storm water run-off is reduced by approximately 2 per cent, reducing the need for costly infrastructure.
Trees cool entire neighborhoods by releasing moisture into the air and shading hard surfaces like parking lots, sidewalks and streets.
Trees increase property values and add to the resale potential of homes.
Each large front yard tree adds 1% to sales price
Large specimen trees can add 10%, or more, to property values
In 50 years, a single tree can
Generate $30,000 in oxygen
Recycle $35,000 worth of water
Eliminate pollutants that would otherwise cost $60,000 to remove from the air.
Trees help to diversify local economies by providing income from harvesting wood products for firewood, pulp and paper and the production of maple syrup
Windbreaks created by trees help to increase crop and livestock productivity and soil sustainability
Trees are good for retail business. One study showed that shoppers in areas cooled and shaded by trees:
Shop more frequently
Stay longer
Pay more for parking
Spend more for goods
QUOTE:
"The best friend on earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth." - Frank Lloyd Wright
Tree Canada is a not-for-profit agency that creates opportunities of individuals and groups with an interest in planting and caring for trees for non-commercial use. Tree Canada has planted over 76 million trees in 16 years. For more information visit www.treecanada.ca.
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