Thanks to grant awards from Grow Boston Greener, ten trees were planted in two different locations in the neighborhood. The WBNA was able to successfully plant six 12′ tall London Plane trees near the Broadway train station on Foundry Street with help from local resident volunteers. Aided with hot coffee and muffins from the Cranberry Cafe, they completed the planting and added a fresh layer of mulch to the planting beds.

Shortly after, Southie Trees planted four flowering cherry trees along the Golden Stairs in Dorchester Heights. Several Youth Ambassadors came out to help plant these trees and daffodil bulbs. The welcoming sunny weather greeted the site upon completion while volunteers helped themselves to a free donated lunch from Red Line Pizza & Grill.

Special thanks to Garda Nee Land Improvement for their help in planning the event and ordering supplies!

As it stands, the BHA and Beacon Communities set a goal to protect half of the heritage trees in the Phase II area. In order to ensure that the number doesn’t decrease, come to the meeting and show that you care about Southie’s tree cover. Details on the meeting are below. Spread the word and we hope to see you all there – help save Boston’s green scene!

Date: Tuesday, November 15th
Time: 6:00pm
Location: Ironworker’s Local Union No.7 Hall, 195 Old Colony Avenue

With help from the Grow Boston Greener program, Southie Trees and the West Broadway Neighborhood Association have joined forces in the South Boston community to help increase tree cover.

Grow Boston Greener is an initiative put in place by the City of Boston and Boston Natural Areas Network to build on the city’s urban forest. GBG accepts grant proposals twice a year from neighborhood groups interested in planting trees.
Both Southie Trees and WBNA were awarded funds to plant trees in South Boston. In collaboration with Garda Nee Land Improvement and Weston Nurseries, a tree planting day has been scheduled for this Saturday morning in two separate locations. WBNA will be planting six london plane trees on Foundry Street in the train yard. Following their planting,  Southie Trees plans to plant four flowering cherry trees and handfuls of daffodil bulbs along the Golden Stairs in Dorchester Heights.

Both tree plantings will be volunteer-based and coffee and muffins will be available all morning thanks to a generous donation from Cranberry Cafe. After both of the tree plantings have been completed, everyone is invited to a free lunch. If you would like to help in the planting effort, you can RSVP to the Facebook event here!

Get your good deed in for the day by getting your hands dirty for a worthy cause!

Strangled street tree (credit D.Warner)

On Saturday October 8^th, residents of South Boston met on West 2^nd Street with a mission: to save street trees.
West 2nd Street divides a neighborhood in the midst of a transition. Newly renovated apartment buildings line one side of the street while the other side harbors vacant commercial space and gated lots. A quick glance down the street is all the proof you need to know that some trees are better off than others. Trees adjacent to the vacant lots were being strangled by the cables and stakes left there from their initial planting. Normally, they serve as temporary fixtures to keep the tree growing upright, however they were never removed and began to cause structural damage.

Trees after a bit of TLC (credit D.Warner)

Southie Trees group members knew that something had to be done. With the help of David Warner from Warner Larson Landscape Architects, Southie Trees organized a volunteer effort to improve the lives of the trees as well as the look of the neighborhood.

Residents met that morning to cut cables and remove tree stakes from the ground. Tree pits got a face-lift as well with weed and trash removal followed by a layer of fresh mulch. Boston Parks and Recreation collected the stakes and tree branches after the event and weeds were taken by Public Works for use as compost. In addition to improving the trees’ living space, volunteers went door-to-door to inform West 2nd Street residents about the need for community involvement in tree care. Because Parks and Recreation has very little manpower, trees need Southie residents to lend a helping hand whenever possible. Southie Trees will be organizing more tree rescue efforts in the future to raise awareness about the need for tree maintenance and show that healthy street trees can help build pride in the community we live in.

Special thanks to David Warner, Mike Garda of Garda Nee Land Improvement and Bill Gleason (WBNA) for tools and equipment, reporter Pat Rosso for covering our story, and Andrew Hutcheson and Tim Strain for capturing our effort on camera.
Together, we can improve Boston’s green scene.

Check out Pat Rosso’s article on Boston.com here!

We must outgrow our previous beliefs about man-animal conflict and accept our new role as planetary stewards, or we will eventually perish in the wake of our own destructive activity.

300 year-old tree in Rawa Kuno

Rimba Raya is a narrow 500 square kilometer strip of land located between a national park and a river. Much of it is composed of deep peat swamp rain forest. Or it used to be. Some has been cut down, despite Indonesia’s laws prohibiting the destruction of carbon-rich deep peat– the product of thousands of years of accumulation at the mind-numbingly slow rate of 0.07 inches per year. Although it is illegal to convert land containing peat over three meters thick to agricultural uses, much of Rimba Raya was slated to be converted to palm oil production. Then, in 2008, an American company approached OFI’s President, Dr. Biruté Galdikas, with a plan to convert Rimba Raya to an “Ecological Restoration Concession” (ERC). The ERC could protect the land for up to 60 years and generate enough income to protect it through the sale of carbon credits.

At first, it looked like things were going well. The project had passed two of the three necessary stages of approval and was simply waiting for a usage map to be issued by the forestry department. But the map was not forthcoming. For a long time, we thought the project was simply stuck. Eventually, we learned the real reason. The provincial government and the forestry department had succumbed to pressure from the palm oil companies. Much of the land has now been allocated to palm oil development.

Is it too late to turn things around? That’s what Dr. Galdikas wanted to find out when I flew out to meet her in Jakarta on August 20th. Every day that week, we battled Jakarta’s traffic on our way to meetings with NGOs, officials, and ex-officials. First, we sought to understand. What happened? Who was behind it? Were we accomplishing anything in these shabby conference rooms, speaking with people who smiled and nodded and quietly stuffed cash envelopes in their briefcases? Was our land irretrievably lost in this sea of smiles and pleasant chitchat?

As the week progressed, our hopes began to fade. One night, we took a taxi out to the elegant home of a former forestry minister. He sat us down in comfortable chairs on the patio where he receives guests. It was a typical Indonesian night–warm and humid. A cute little country rat scuttled among the potted plants. Much nicer than the greasy Norwegian wharf rats we encountered in Jakarta. Children played outside. His wife was praying at the mosque.

“Is there anything we can do?” we asked. “After all, these palm oil concessions are totally illegal!”

He fed us cake and smiled at us. “No, of course you can’t do anything.”

“But what about the 40 orangutans we are waiting to release and whom we can no longer afford to feed?”

He smiled even more. “You should just release them anyway,” he said. “Plenty of time to get permission later.”

At the end of the week, we flew to Pangkalan Bun, in Borneo, where 330 hungry orangutans were waiting for us. Our first stop was an ATM, where Dr. Galdikas, the OFI intern and I each withdrew the maximum allowed. Our next stop was a pickup truck by the side of the road filled with durian fruit and cempedak, Indonesian fruits that smell like gorgonzola cheese. We bought the whole truckload. We then handed them out to hungry orangutans at every place we visited.

During the two days I spent in Borneo, I finally got to see Rawa Kuno, a different forest that OFI is attempting to purchase outright. It is beautiful beyond description. I can only repeat Dr. Galdikas’ words. “It’s like the original Garden of Eden. And the orangutans are our innocent cousins who never left.”

They took photos of me standing next to a 300 year-old rain forest tree with huge buttresses. The farmer who owns the land, Pak Kuku, was there with us, along with a reporter from Vanity Fair. The reporter asked him, “You cut down many of the large trees in this forest. Why didn’t you take this one? Were there spirits in the tree?”

“I felt sorry for the tree,” came back the translation. “And besides, I had to have at least one large tree to show Dr. Galdikas.”

On the way to Rawa Kuno, we saw miles and miles of scrubland, burned land, tree stumps, and the occasional Zirconium mine. Welcome to Indonesia. Where some of the most beautiful forests on the planet are going, going, gone.

For a video of Rawa Kuno, and to pick out your own parcel of land for purchase, please visit http://www.orangutan.org/how-to-help/rawakuno/rawa-kuno-legacy-forest

As part of the ongoing effort to save heritage trees in South Boston, Southie Trees has been hard at work trying to protect Old Colony’s elms and maples during the planning stages for Phase II construction.

Old Colony began its facelift last year with the first phase scheduled to finish up by next summer. When Phase I was first put into action, most of the trees that were decades old were torn down to make room for the new building layout. Much to the community’s dismay, lush green foliage was replaced with wire fences and caution tape. Southie Trees is determined to make sure the Old Colony residents will have a louder voice during Phase II construction.

Phase II of the new development layout is well underway and as plans are being finalized, Southie Trees has been in constant contact with the Boston Housing Authority. In addition to the tree survey that was conducted with help from students from ABCD earlier this summer, they organized a meeting with the Old Colony reconstruction project team. Representatives from the BHA, Beacon Communities as well as their arborist and landscape architect met on Tuesday to discuss the most recent plans for Phase II. After Southie Trees delivered their presentation, the OC team discussed efforts they’ve been making to preserve as many trees as possible. Hearing the BHA’s interest in protecting trees deemed healthy enough to make it through construction is great news for South Boston’s residents. Southie Trees will continue to meet with the Old Colony team over the next couple weeks to try and reach an agreement that pleases both parties. With all the economic and environmental benefits that trees offer to the community, there is a lot at stake to save these other green giants.

Want to read more about Tuesday’s meeting? Check out this article from Boston.com

If you want to get involved in Southie Trees’ efforts, join our Facebook page and keep checking for news and updates!

But if this is the case, why did the US Congress delist the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act and allow states like Montana to put in place “wolf management” plans that will reduce the number of wolves in the state from 565 to 425 in 2011.  What did the wolves do to get delisted from the Endangered Species Act?  They were responsible for tiny amounts of livestock losses.  In Montana, for example they killed 87 out of 2.6 million cattle.  They killed  64 sheep out of 85,000 sheep.  They also killed 3 llamas, 2 dogs, 3 goats, 1 horse, and 4 miniature horses.  The owners of these animals were reimbursed nearly $100,000 for their losses.  But that was not enough to stop hunting groups funded by agribusiness from mounting a massive smear campaign against wolves that led to the final delisting.

No matter how wealthy the society, it seems we cannot adjust to living in harmony with animals—no matter how endangered they are.

In March of 2010, Mayor Menino announced an award of over $22 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to fund a “green” public housing transformation project. Phase I of this project began last summer and is scheduled to finish during the summer of 2012. During this construction, over two dozen of these heritage trees were cut down to make way for the new building layout.

Southie Trees, a group whose goal is to improve tree cover in South Boston, had begun working with Tech Networks of Boston in order to make sure the following phases of construction leave these trees in place. Jenn Brundage is TNB’s sustainability coordinator and was put in charge of conducting a survey of all the trees on site. With help from ABCD’s summer youth program, she and her students recorded the location, condition, and diameter of all of the 96 trees in Old Colony. They were able to find the economic and environmental value of these trees through iTree software.

The iTree results from Old Colony will be compared to a survey that Southie Trees carried out earlier this summer at the Washington Beech housing development in Roslindale. Washington Beech had undergone a similar reconstruction project in which the majority of the old trees were cut down and replaced with newly planted ones.

Comparing the results from these surveys will be the foundation of our efforts to protect the trees in Old Colony at risk of being cut down. Interested in taking part in this environmental cause? Southie Trees is open to everyone with a love for the environment and a desire to save trees. For more information, visit Planet Southie and stay tuned for updates on our quest to save these green giants!

http://planetsouthie.blogspot.com/p/southie-trees.html

The Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) was honored with the Andrews Award for Outstanding Contribution by Young Activists at the Animals Asia Conference held in Chengdu-China. The Annual Asia Conference is held every two years and honors activists from many different walks of life.  Veterinary groups, zoos, government and non-government organizations come to share support and recognize each others’ efforts with a long-term goal of solving the animal issues in Asia.

Activists from COP were recognized for their efforts to save orangutans living the wild as well as zoos in bad condition. COP Principal Hardi Baktiantoro and Fast Response Manager of the COP APE Crusader team, Ramadhani, accepted the award from Jill Robinson, Founder of Animals Asia.

In his acceptance speech, Hardi had this to say: “This award is dedicated to COP’s APE Crusader team, because of their fearlessness in the front line while protecting orangutans and their habitat. I wish to thank the Forest Defenders Camp (Kamp Pembela Hutan) community, and to all of volunteers who have been willing to work without salary. I wish to acknowledge the wonderful support we receive from internet campaigners who never tire of spreading information in the social network. Finally, my very special thanks to COP’s donors and sponsors who place their trust in us. Together we make one great team and because of this COP have already been able to save fifty orangutans and help a similar number in captivity.”

“My dream now is when I return to Indonesia my own government will at last acknowledge the importance of saving our orangutans, Indonesia’s only species of great ape, and their habitat before it is too late.”

Source: http://redapes.org/news-updates/center-orangutan-protection-cop-wins-prestigious-award

Starting next month, Tech Boston’s Susan Labandibar will be venturing to Indonesia as part of the Hutan Project. This month-long trip will include a visit with COP and a donation of several video cameras to aid in their cause. Stay tuned for updates on Susan’s trip!