Community Forestry Conference

I just returned from the Arbor Day Foundation's community forestry conference in Philadelphia.

On the whole, it was wonderful. Urban foresters, tree group advocates, dynamic volunteers, warm-hearted utility arborists all symbiotically co-habiting (not that way, this way: "occupying or sharing the same place, as different species") the urban landscape of Loew's Hotel on Market Street. animals", from dictionary.com)

Some of these folks have been in the field for 40 years, since its very inception. Others were fledglings like me. And the field is growing.

Cities like Philadelphia, New York, Nashville, Indianapolis and dozens more are transforming the "built environment," utilizing trees as the anchor for creating a "green infrastructure" that is more affordable, more secure, more flexible and more efficient than the contemporary "gray infrastructure". The efforts were grounded in trees but were not bound to trees. That is, trees were seen as the leading edge toward creative and sustainable initiatives of economic redevelopment, social equity, urban re-design and renaissance, and the sense of place.

I learned that 2011 is the United Nations International Year of the Forest. Organizations here in Baltimore are -hopefully - going to educate, celebrate and forestate (okay, I made that word up) throughout the year. At the very least, we each should get trees and plant them in our yards, at our congregations, in our neighborhoods.

If you live in the city, you can contact TreeBaltimore, or if you live in the county, the Growing Home Campaign.

They can give you more information, as well as discounts and coupons on trees.

I learned much and was mostly heartened by the people there and their often amazing ideas and efforts.

Yet here is the context in which I learned all this. We stayed in a lovely hotel, with lush linens, plush bathrobes, marble floors, plenty of food. We were three blocks away from City Hall, one block away from the famed Reading Terminal Market - think Lexington Market tripled or so.

Lots of people, lots of policy makers, groaning stalls over-flowing with foods of all kinds. And yet I could not walk from one end of a block to another without passing wheel-chaired amputees begging for money, self-appointed panhandlers raising money for a worthy cause (I present them to you at face-value), and plain old needy beggars.

Just inside so much food was being prepared, sold and consumed on sight that it was almost grotesque. (Vegetarians beware: there is more bare animal flesh laid out in what some people clearly think is a tantalizing manner than you ever want to see. And no manner of averting your eyes will save you.)

A bit Fellini-esque (I didn't make that word up). But outside was want, filth, passing eyes that never met, momentary blindness afflicting the hapless pedestrians for they could not bear to see the press of the need and requests these leading-edge beggars represented.

The contrast between want outside and fullness inside; them and us; seeking and blindness; forestry on a block where hardly a tree could be found, cast a shadow on the experience, and reminded us that all that we do with trees must also respond to this.