Spokane Urban Forestry program, a division of our Parks and Recreation, believes in the necessity of saving and replacing our urban (neighborhoods) forest to combat dwindling water quality, reduce storm water runoff (can save us millions of tax- dollars annually) and help improve our air quality.
Whether you favor global warming theory or ice-age theory, both schools of thought say that the best chance humanity has to draw down CO2 levels in the atmosphere and to stabilize climate favorably for humanity is to plant massive amounts of trees. This is perhaps the major reason for humanity to reforest the world.
The Lands Council, a local non-profit, that strives to preserve and revitalize our forests, water, and wildlife - orchestrated this year, again, a massive tree planting to help restore our natural urban forest which has/is being decimated by homeowners and developers.
My transitional neighborhood of young couples with 1 or less children (typically) , the very old or DINKS (which Bill tells me I don’t qualify since I don’t take an income from the company yet) is an example of urban deforestation. It was heavily forested with century old native pines and non-indiginous leafy tress making it exceptionally appealing. Ironically, those very people attracted to the neighborhood are the ones engaged in changing the scenery by chopping down every tree on their property. Makes me wonder why they just didn’t purchase a less expensive property in treeless areas of town.
This past Saturday, Oct 27, 2012, 500+ volunteers came together, for the 2nd year in a row, to continue the effort of reforesting Spokane. The very young to considerably older volunteers planted 5,000 native pines in the belief that trees will improve our regional quality of life.
We share the belief that eco-systems should be sustained and supported - both locally and in those countries that produce our coffee beans. Naturally, even though it is considerably more expensive, we support Shade Grown coffee production verses the standard deforestation and heavy chemical method used to grow 97% of the worlds coffees.
So of course on a local level we support efforts to preserve our environment. Just as we did last year, we got up at the crack of dawn and brewed hot fresh coffee and served the 500+ tree planting volunteers working to restore our local habitat.
We believe that as locally owned businesses dependent on our community for our success - supporting our community is simply the right thing to do. And we do it one cup at a time…
If you love our forests, want clean rivers & lakes, and or help preserve wide open pristine lands then…
