Seeing the forest and the trees

Jennifer Greenfeld is the Assistant Commissioner of Forestry, Horticulture, and Natural Resources for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Her job is to manage, think about, plan for nature in New York City. At the end of 2016, New York City released the results of their most recent street tree census, where they counted all the street trees along the city sidewalk. This was the culmination of about 18 months of work. Parks employees and over 2,000 citizen volunteers literally took to the streets to complete the census using surveyor’s wheels to precisely locate over half a million street trees. Parks turned all the data they collected into a public facing, interactive, living map. The map shows all the trees in the census displaying their species, size, and ecological benefits at the click of a mouse. In a city of over 8 million people, this was a huge effort. And it’s changing the way citizens interact with the urban forest. You can view the map here: https://tree-map.nycgovparks.org/ This podcast is a production of DeepRoot Green Infrastructure, LLC (www.deeproot.com). **CORRECTION: The company referred to as "Azteca" is actually called "Azavea."** Music: Broke for Free, “Golden Hour” Blue Dot Sessions, “Rafter,” “Discovery Harbor”