City of Portland, Oregon Bureau of
Environmental Services Integrated
Solutions Coordinator Jennifer Karps
started her presentation with an
unflinching look at Portland's his-
torically racist practices of redlining,
gentrification, community displace-
ment, and racial profiling. These
practices are not in any way unique to Portland, and
their pernicious effects persist in cities across the U.S.
With that grounding, Jennifer then shared how for
the past twelve years, Portland's Environmental
Services Tree Program (ESTP) has worked to reduce
Portland's "green gap" through both an extensive
and intensive equity focus in service provisioning.
Strategic outreach in low-tree-canopy, low-income,
racially diverse communities has resulted in more
than 75% of services provided in these "equity geog-
raphies," and working with numerous partners helps
vulnerable, historically underserved communities
get involved in meaningful ways. See also Friends of
Trees and City of Portland Community Watershed
Stewardship Program as discussed in Jennifer's talk.
Thank you to Davey Resource Group
and DRG Business Development
Manager Josh Behounek for
personably hosting the virtual
conference and skillfully handling
the technical side of things.
Trees Forever Director of Programs
Leslie Berckes and Des Moines, Iowa
City Forester David Jahn gave a cre-
atively styled presentation, "A Tale
of Two Cities: Tree Planting during
Redlining Compared to Equity-
based Delivery of Tree Planting."
Through the Growing Futures
program, Des Moines is investing
in occupational and life training for
youth in under-represented demo-
graphics to redress inequities in the
urban canopy caused by decades
of redlining policies. This presenta-
tion detailed the mechanics of the
vital partnering between a munic-
ipal government and a non-profit to achieve common
tree equity goals in the Des Moines urban forest.
30 CityTREES
