NYC report finds more tree coverage on Staten Island; details gains over past decade

By Paul Liotta | Staten Island Advance

Staten Island’s tree coverage is among the most robust in the city and outpaces its land area, according to a report released Tuesday.

In “The State of the Urban Forest in NYC,” The Nature Conservancy (TNC) looked at tree coverage around the five boroughs, and how it’s changed over the past decade.

Emily Nobel Maxwell, director of TNC’s Cities Program in New York, said they published the report hoping it would act as a roadmap for people to better understand trees’ benefits, and how to bring them to communities that are lacking.

“That is essential work, as the myriad of benefits the forest offers New Yorkers include the ability to mitigate the effects of extreme heat and flooding,” she said. “As New Yorkers and their urban forest face the realities of climate change, these benefits and the future of our urban forest itself are at serious risk.”

TNC found that Staten Island, the city’s least developed borough, has about 28% of the city’s tree canopy, while only having about 20% of its land area.

Additionally, the report found that the canopy coverage on the Island has been on the rise in the past decade gaining almost 1,000 additional acres of coverage from 2010 to 2017.

TNC credits a variety of factors for the increased canopy coverage around the city, including increased planting in city parks and other publicly-owned land. On Staten Island, they pointed to Latourette Golf Course, the former Fresh Kills Landfill that’s being turned into a park, and the College of Staten Island.

What’s lacking on the Island and across the country, is canopy coverage in poorer urban areas, according to the report.

To change that reality, TNC also published an agenda that lays out proposals that would bring the benefits of canopy coverage to more New Yorkers. The agenda has four overarching strategies — planning, investment, management and learning.

Through the agenda, TNC hopes to achieve 30% canopy coverage across the city’s acres by 2035. On Staten Island — the borough with the most canopy coverage — about 31% of land falls under the canopy, which is an increase of about 2% from 2010 to 2017.

In that timespan, Staten Island also led the way in the biggest gain of acres covered by the canopy with 880. For comparison, only about 18% of Brooklyn falls under the canopy, the lowest in the city, and Manhattan had the lowest acreage growth adding just 292 acres of canopy coverage.

Mike Treglia, lead scientist of The Nature Conservancy in New York’s Cities Program, said he hopes these facts and TNC’s four-pronged plan help guide the city to more tree coverage.

“New York City has an incredible community of researchers and practitioners who have laid an invaluable foundation of work that we were able to build upon,” he said. “I hope the new analysis and synthesis offered by this report supports effective advocacy and policy, while making a case for ongoing research and monitoring of the urban forest.”

Original story here.

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NYC report finds more tree coverage on Staten Island; details gains over past decade