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Trees are an important part of our environment, in urban areas no less than in the wild. Clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration, shade, temperature control, increased property value, and wildlife habitat are a few of their benefits. Many urban areas - like San Diego - have policies preserving, protecting and encouraging the planting and growth of trees. Everyone loves trees, right?
So, why are trees in trouble? Why are urban forests shrinking instead of growing? Why would majestic 50-year-old trees lining a public sidewalk be leveled to the ground? Why are new street center dividers mostly concrete and asphalt instead of tree planters? Why not fill those empty spaces with green?
Well, not everyone loves every tree. That spectacular tree in your neighbor's yard might be a maintenance nuisance in yours. A tree might be legally protected, but the guy with a chain saw might not know that. The city might love trees, but not love the expense of taking care of them.
Advocates are needed to speak for the trees, especially in urban areas. TreeWatch is a neighborhood-based, citizen-science volunteer program to involve residents in identifying and protecting their local city trees and contributing to implementing the City’s Climate Action Plan.
About This Website
This website has several purposes.
First we want to introduce you to those City of San Diego tree programs that are currently inactive, and to invite you to join our campaign to get them reactivated. Having these programs in full force would be a powerful benefit for the urban forest. This campaign can be found under the Support City Programs menu.
The second purpose is to introduce you to two neighborhood-level programs: Tree Ambassadors and TreeWatchers.Tree Ambassadors encourage groups, neighborhoods or organizations to get and plant "free trees." TreeWatchers learn about trees in their area, and learn how to protect them. Details about these programs can be found under the Neighborhood Tree Programs menu.
Third, the Tree Links menu has a wide variety of links to information about urban forests, trees in general, pro-tree organizations, and native plants.
Fourth, we want to share some general information about the movement to support urban forests. The Tree Maps & Equity menu has links to some advanced technology to study and map forests. The FAQ menu has a few Frequently Asked Questions that didn't fit in anywhere else.
Lastly, the entire TreeWatch San Diego program is a project of San Diego Earth Day, the non-profit organization that produces the (non-COVID) annual EarthFair in Balboa Park each April. Our only source of funding for this project is from donations. If you can spare a few dollars, see the Support tab to see how you can help us keep TreeWatch running.
The urban forest in the City of San Diego is declining. The city has allowed existing programs designed to protect existing trees to lapse.
The campaigns listed on this page are ways that individuals can participate to convince the City of San Diego to reactivate these powerful programs to benefit the urban forest. Other campaigns will be added as needed.
All of these campaigns will be coordinated by TreeWatch. If you see a campaign below that you are interested in joining, please email TreeMail@TreeWatchSD.org to be contacted by TreeWatch staff.
Ways to Help
Heritage Trees Campaign (City of San Diego)
The City of San Diego has several designation processes that provide some protections for “Heritage” or “Landmark” trees. However, this program has been suspended, even though you can find and file applications. This campaign is working to re-activate the historic tree designation process in the City. More...
Campaign to Reactivate the Community Forest Advisory Board (CFAB) of the City of San Diego
All the seats on the CFAB are either vacant or expired and the Board has not met in the last year. Nominations are needed for both district citizen representatives and expert positions on the Board. All the seats are either vacant or expired. The Community Forest Advisory Board was established in 1999 to provide advice and recommendations directly to the mayor and city council on all policy issues relating to urban forestry. More...
Campaign success!
Our campaign to reactivate the CFAB led to a meeting in January with the Mayor’s aide in charge of appointments to Boards & Commissions. He informed us that the Mayor has agreed to make appointments to the CFAB AND to the other two environmental review boards that are dormant: Sustainable Energy and Wetlands Advisory Boards.
NOTE: Wait times to get a tree are estimated at 3-6 months (as of Nov 2021)
Be a participant in the city's tree planting efforts! Through Free Tree SD, residents can request a new street tree. This program allows residents and the city to work together by increasing San Diego's tree canopy cover, creating a more livable and sustainable community for all.
San Diegans, all you need to do is identify a space in the public right-of-way, agree to water the tree for three years, and submit the form below. City arborists will evaluate the space and determine an appropriate tree selection. See www.sandiego.gov/blog/free-tree-sd. Kate's Trees also provides information on how to get and plant the right tree and get it to grow.
Update to the Climate Action Plan in the City of San Diego
The City released the Update to the Climate Action Plan on November 9, 2021, and is seeking public comment. Send your comments requesting more specific review of why the existing CAP goals related to the urban forest are not being met. Public hearings are expected in January, 2022.
To join the conversation, please send an email mentioning this program to TreeMail@TreeWatchSD.org
The City’s Climate Action Plan (CAP) has a goal to increase the urban forest canopy and to reduce urban heat island effects. Yet the CAP’s annual reports show that the urban forest is declining. New plantings are not keeping up with mature removals.
Additional public support is required to push for implementation of the city’s Urban Forest Management Plan.
This campaign is seeking to re-activate the historic tree designation process in the city. This also includes reactivating the city’s Community Forest Advisory Board (CFAB)
Actions you can take include:
Learn the tree designations
Locate possible tree nominations
Work with TreeWatch for review and confirmation of nominations
Submit tree nomination to the city
Tree Preservation Designations
The following designations refer to striking or unusual trees with high aesthetic value, significant for their age or historical value. Features may include:
A LANDMARK TREE is a striking or unusual tree with high aesthetic value, features may include:
Large for the species
Special or unusual form
Interesting flowers or branching pattern
Species rare to its location
A HERITAGE TREE is significant for its age or historical value, including:
Trees 50 years or older
Connected to a historical event, building or district or planted by a historically significant individual
A PARKWAY RESOURCE TREE is one of a group of trees in public right-of-way, public parking lots or trails
Consistent design theme with similar size, shape, health and form
Trees creating a canopy over a public way
A PRESERVATION GROVE is Groups of trees in public right-of-way, open space, designated environmentally sensitive lands, conservation easement or parkland
6 or more trees with trunks within 100 feet of each other
Same or similar species and form
Native, naturalized or endemic and surviving without intervention
The vision statement for the Board is to "create mechanisms for establishing, advocating and stewarding, in perpetuity, a healthy urban forest and thereby a healthy, attractive and prosperous city." The board was tasked with advocating for proactive urban forestry policies, ordinances, and guidelines.
Across the country, tree boards are valued, respected, and effective advisors to mayors, councils, city staff, and the public. Most large cities have a dedicated urban forestry board. CFAB has served for 20 years as an effective advisory board for trees, residents and visitors.
CFAB has supported city staff, especially in the seven years when there were no professional urban foresters (2008 to 2014).
CFAB members wrote grant proposals that funded the urban forestry plan, tree inventories, and tree planting.
CFAB successfully advocated to restore urban forest program funding and professional staffing.
CFAB members provide hundreds of hours of community education, tree planting and care, and advocacy for climate action.
Urban forestry boards are a recognized Best Management Practice.
Elimination of CFAB may disqualify San Diego for distinguished Tree City USA status.
Urban forestry boards integrate with local professionals and community members in managing complex urban forestry activities. They have similar functions as Library, Police, and Park boards.
Without urban forest advocacy, San Diego’s urban tree health and overall tree canopy will decline; implementation of the Climate Action Plan will be constrained.
TreeWatchers are individuals who volunteer to help protect specific trees in area and to support increasing the city tree canopy over time.
Q: Who can be a TreeWatcher?
A: An individual, a family or any sized group willing to help protect their local trees in the City of San Diego.
Q: What do TreeWatchers do?
A: TreeWatchers learn how to survey and identify the public and/or private trees in their area and become familiar with how to protect them. They will also learn one of the most important aspects for an urban forest:
, plus related resources specific to San Diego trees.
Q: How big of an area do TreeWatchers have to watch?
A: TreeWatchers define their own areas. It can be your own lot or nearby public-right-of-way or park, or a block or where ever you feel comfortable surveying and watching over time.
Q: After you know you’d like to be a TreeWatcher, then what?
A: We ask TreeWatchers to: CARE - LEARN - ACT
To get started, send an email to TreeMail@TreeWatchSD.org with your name, zipcode, plus anything else you would like us to know.
Complete the Tree Steward training with Tree San Diego
Tree Steward workshops are offered the 3rd Saturday of each month from 10am-noon. During that time you will learn how to:
Plant, water, maintain, and monitor tree health
Communicate and advocate for trees in their local community
Learn the benefits of urban forests
Identify native species and discuss proper care technique
The trainings are free to residents of the City of San Diego and take about an hour depending on the number of questions at the end. It includes the opportunity to ask questions of a City arborist. They ask for a $15 donation for residents of other cities or the county of San Diego.
Define your tree survey area
Identify the public trees in your area
Share Updates & Photos in the TreeWatch Facebook Community Group
Watch for opportunities to advocate for trees in the City of San Diego
From time to time TreeWatch will let you know when you can make a difference for protecting trees in San Diego
Q: How much does it cost to become a TreeWatcher?
A: It doesn’t cost anything to participate. We do invite tax-deductible donations and ask you to become a member at whatever level you can afford.
Tree Ambassadors
Q: What is a Tree Ambassador?
A: Tree Ambassadors are paid interns and volunteers who invest 35 hours working in their communities to increase the urban forest.
Q: What do I do to become a Tree Ambassador?
There is an application and a periodic interview process. Tree Ambassadors create a tree campaign for their specific community and set goals for tree sharing, caring and planting.
Tree Ambassadors is a pilot program to support community action to plant, care for, and advocate for trees in San Diego’s urban areas. Interns (any age) will receive modest stipend of $600 for engaging groups, organizations, or neighborhoods to get and grow trees.
Outcomes are to:
Inform and educate their target community; and
Set and work toward goal for community members to request trees, pick up and plant in front or back yard, or submit requests for a “free tree” from list of sources.
Apply by sending an email message to Anne Fege, anne@katestrees.org. Applications accepted until ten interns have been selected. Work to be completed by November 8.
Each community is invited to pledge to the Kate Sessions Commitment and to plant 100 trees per year. Learn more about the Kate Sessions Commitment for trees in San Diego
The Climate Science Alliance's reports and presentations help translate science in real time to various audiences, helping individuals see themselves as part of the solution.
City of San Diego Nerd Closet (details that matter)
The City of San Diego has some great plans! If you were to review even just a few of them, you’d see our policies for a great city fighting climate change, protecting our urban forest and pursuing zero waste. If policies shaped the budget, we’d be more “green” than ever.
But what is missing? Political will - and that means working together so that the mayor and city council will support both improving the policies, but also implementing the ones we have.
City of San Diego Conservation Element
Yes, we have one! The Conservation Element is one of the Chapters of the Cities General Plan that outlines the overall consitution for the city’s development.
Last June, the US Tree Map and Tree Equity Score were announced by American Forests—and we're exploring how they can be used for Climate Action Plan revision and for engaging communities in tree care and planting. They are “game changers” for accessible, affordable, amazing maps of trees, in neighborhoods and even parcels!
The Tree Equity Score map is at www.treeequityscore.org. The map combines socioeconomic status, health factors, climate factors, and existing tree cover to create a score for each census block. Type in “San Diego” to view and zoom in.
The US Tree Map (UTM) is now the most detailed and up-to-date source of tree cover data for the country. It has 1-meter resolution, refreshed about every two years, and described at www.earthdefine.com/treemap.
Start with a 13-minute video “tour” of the maps and applications for San Diego, available at drive.google.com. Please feel free to share this info and link to this video "tour."
Overhead wires where trees grow into them and are unable to be trimmed.
Pests and diseases: there has been an increase in recent years, killing many mature trees.
Surviving through drought and getting enough water to mature (this is one of the ways individuals can help the most)
The majority of the urban forest is on private land (mostly single-family homes) that have no statutory protections for trees.
The most important thing is for the right tree to be put in the right place to begin with by understanding the growth potential of any tree over decades.
Young trees that do not get enough water to become established and become too small to survive attacks, both unintentional and sadly, intentional. TreeWatchers will learn how to recognize signs of declining tree health and know what pests and diseases have been identified in the region.
Not all trees can be saved and trees do eventually die. Urban trees face significant challenges. For the tree canopy to increase over time, public awareness and additional support for improved tree policies will be required.
Q: How else can I support TreeWatch San Diego?
A: Tell others. Share on social media and in neighborhood news. Join the TreeWatch email list and respond to Action Alerts.
To make a donation by credit card on-line, just click this link.
To make a donation by check, please make it payable to San Diego Earth Day (of which TreeWatch is a project) and mail it to:
San Diego Earth Day
PO Box 9827
San Diego, CA 92169
Please be sure to include your complete contact info (including name, email, address, phone).
To make a donation by credit card off-line, please call the San Diego Earth Day office at 858-272-7370 during normal business hours.
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Right Tree, Right Place
Trees are a long-term commitment, so you have to consider, what size will any tree become? Will its roots going down or it’s branches going up cause any future problems? In any urban area, trees in the public right-of-way are often killed when competing with sidewalks, underground utilities, or overhead wires.
While San Diego has a wide variety of species of trees planted, naturalized, and grown with imported water, trees native to our region do best. There are close to 30 different species of trees native to San Diego county.
Native trees:
Are well adapted to their local climate
Do better against local pests and therefore have fewer pest related problems, some having evolved natural resistances
require less water
require less maintenance
provide habitat and/or food for scores of organisms, some that coevolved, others that have formed symbiotic relationships.
To learn about native planting choices of all varieties: calscape.org
The Mayor shall appoint one (1) member who shall be designated as Chair and nine (9) members, one each from a list of two (2) nominations submitted by each Councilmember to represent their district. Additionally, the Mayor shall appoint five (5) members who shall be a Landscape Architect; a Certified Arborist/Urban Forester; a Horticulturist/Nursery Industry representative; a representative from a non-profit organization or governmental agency involved with forestry; and an Artist.
Description
It is the purpose and intent of the City Council to establish a Community Forest Advisory Board to serve in an advisory capacity to the Mayor, City Council, and City Manager on policy issues relating to urban forestry. The vision statement for the Board is to “create mechanisms for establishing, advocating and stewarding, in perpetuity, a healthy urban forest and thereby a healthy, attractive and prosperous city."
Purpose/Duties
Provide advice and recommendations directly to the Mayor, City Council and City Manager on all policy issues relating to urban forestry.
Advocate and formulate proactive urban forestry policies, ordinances and guidelines.
Prepare a recommended comprehensive urban forestry master plan and conduct a tree inventory.
Review and comment the coordination of urban forestry related policies and programs.
Network with other boards, agencies and community residents.
Act as a general information resource and promote volunteerism.
Review and comment on the implementation and compliance with urban forestry policies and programs.
Promote and seek funding for the establishment and sustaining of an urban forestry program.
Promote and foster a strong sense of community through urban forestry
