Numerous Network groups will be utilizing urban greening project funds to develop green space at several schools and schoolyards in California by replacing asphalt and concrete with permeable surfaces, bioswales, low mow/low maintenance grasses, gardens, native landscaping, understory and shade trees. Award recipients included the LA Conservation Corps, Hollywood Beautification Team and the Sacramento Tree Foundation.

In addition, TreePeople and North East Trees joined the LA Conservation Corps in securing planning grants that will support urban greening planning for Baldwin Hills, La Brea, Downtown San Pedro, Inglewood, and Lennox.

Finally, Urban Tree Foundation partnered with the City of Visalia and the City of Hanford to restore portions of Mill Creek, and plant street trees in downtown Hanford, respectively.

In total, six Network groups picked up 10 urban greening grants totaling almost $4.6 million, or more than 22%, of the entire pot for available in this grant cycle.

The final awards approved by SGC last week in the 2011-12 grant cycle for Network Groups are as follows:

By DOUGLAS M. MAIN

The New York Times, April 25, 2012

Red oak seedlings in Central Park grow up to eight times faster than their cousins cultivated outside the city, probably because of the urban “heat island” effect, Columbia University researchers report.

The researchers planted seedlings of the native red oak in the spring of 2007 and 2008 in four places: in northeastern Central Park, near 105th Street; in two forest plots in the suburban Hudson Valley; and near the city’s Ashokan Reservoir in the Catskill foothills about 100 miles north of Manhattan. By the end each of summer, the city trees had put on eight times more biomass than those raised outside the city, according to their study, published in the journal Tree Physiology.

“The seedlings grew much larger in the city, with decreasing growth as you get farther from the city,” said the study’s lead author, Stephanie Searle, who was a Columbia University undergraduate when the research began and is now a biofuels policy researcher at the International Council on Clean Transportation in Washington.

The researchers hypothesized that Manhattan’s warmer temperatures — up to eight degrees higher at nighttime than in rural surroundings — could be a primary reason for the Central Park oaks’ faster growth rates.

Yet temperature is obviously only one of the differences between rural and urban sites. To isolate the role played by the thermostat, the researchers also raised oaks in a laboratory setting where all conditions were basically the same, except for the temperature, which was altered to mimic conditions from the different field plots. Sure enough, they observed faster growth rates for oaks raised in hotter conditions, similar to those seen in the field, Dr. Searle said.

The so-called urban heat island effect is often discussed in terms of potentially negative consequences. But the study suggests it could be a boon to certain species. “Some organisms may thrive on urban conditions,” another author, Kevin Griffin, a tree physiologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia, said in a statement.

The results parallel those of a 2003 study in Nature that found greater growth rates among poplar trees raised in the city than among those grown in the surrounding countryside. But the current study went farther by isolating the effect of temperature, Dr. Searle said.

Red oaks and their relatives dominate many forests from Virginia to southern New England. The experience of Central Park’s red oaks could yield clues to what might happen in forests elsewhere as temperatures climb in decades to come with the advance of climate change, the researchers suggested.

By Ashley Archibald, Santa Monica Daily Press

DIGGING IN: Boy Scout Troop 2 creates an urban forest out of a small strip of land Saturday as part of a national carbon trading initiative. photo by Brandon Wise.

A stand of young California sycamores, supported by poles nearly as tall as the trees themselves, line what used to be a dilapidated asphalt pad, sentinels against the waves of invisible chemicals and particulates emanating from the cars below.

The trees represent the intersection of national policy and local achievement as part of both a federal pilot project to study the carbon sequestering potential of the urban forest and the culmination of one Santa Monican’s journey to attain the highest title available to him — Eagle Scout.

Josh Lappen, 17, stumbled upon the planting project through hard work and luck.

Lappen has been a member of Santa Monica’s Boy Scout Troop 2 since he was in seventh grade. That’s several years of knot tying, fire starting and learning to canoe, a specialty of Troop 2.

At the end of the parade of merit badges comes not a new turn, but a mountain — choose to take on the six-month process of elevating to Eagle Scout or simply content oneself with a job well done.

Amongst a host of other requirements, prospective Eagle Scouts have to commit themselves to accomplishing a project for the community. Although there are no hard and fast rules on what the project must entail, they usually contribute something meant to last and consume over 100 hours of effort on the part of the applicant.

Lappen was struggling. He knew he wanted to contribute something to the outdoors that had an emphasis on the environment and sustainability, but hit only dead ends.

“I looked originally at trail building,” Lappen said. “One of the things I especially love about Boy Scouts are the outdoor activities.”

But when he picked up the phone to call a state park and offer free manual labor, no one answered. Budget cuts had taken their toll on the park system to the point that Lappen couldn’t find anyone to even hear his proposal.

“Now that’s a story,” Lappen said.

A multitude of contacts later, Lappen hit upon the city of Santa Monica and contacted City Forester Walt Warriner.

Warriner, it so happened, had an idea.

City Hall signed up with the United States Forest Service to take part in a pilot project that could eventually earn carbon credits by planting 1,000 trees that remove carbon from the air.

Carbon credits are an interesting invention of the capitalist system that puts a value on the amount of carbon dioxide and other green house gases that a company or entity emits. Exchanges, similar to the New York Stock Exchange, allow polluting companies or industries to buy credits so they can effectively produce more pollution.

At the other end of the transaction is another group that promises to either reduce its own emissions or actively remove carbon from the air.

The 1,000 trees being planted in Santa Monica will remove green house gases from the air and eventually make City Hall a player in that market.

Through a grant from the South Coast Air Quality Management District, Warriner had the trees and the space, a vegetation-free asphalt strip backed up against a safety fence. Lappen offered him the labor.

“This project was completely up my alley,” Lappen said. “It was everything I could have thought of, wanted or dreamed of in a planting project.”

At the end of February, municipal teams cleaned up the site, removing the cap of concrete and prepping for the eventual planting.

On April 28, the day after National Arbor Day, Lappen and a host of volunteers were ready to get the trees in the ground.

Popular culture holds that it’s difficult to get teenagers to do anything at 8 a.m. except hit a snooze button, but as the clock wound up Saturday morning, the team of teens gathered where 22nd Street meets Michigan Avenue, shovels in hand.

The process is technically simple — dig a hole as deep as the root ball on the end of the young tree and approximately twice as wide. Place the tree inside the hole, and fill it in with soil, but not too high to invite crown rot to the new plant.

Tie the sycamore to stakes placed immediately to the sides, and a tree is planted. Repeat between 19 and 24 more times.

That’s hard work, particularly getting the stakes in the ground, which requires a heavy piece of metal placed on top of the stake that a person lifts and then lets fall, driving the pole downward.

“A day of planting trees is a workout,” Warriner said, watching the young men and women attack the ground with shovels.

In 10 years, with thoughtful care and pruning, the trees will grow to 20 or 30 feet in height, just below the power lines that stretch over the site. Over the course of the next century, Santa Monica officials have committed to monitoring the trees’ growth and reporting back to the Forest Service for use in their studies.

But it’s in two decades that the newly-planted sycamores will have their greatest impact.

“Twenty years from now, these kids will be driving their kids to school,” Warriner said. “They’ll be able to tell their kids, ‘I planted those trees.’ There’s an immense amount of pride in that.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

To read the full contest rules or submit a photo, visit urbanforest.challenge.gov.

Why Trees Matter

By Jim Robbins

Published: April 11, 2012

Helena, Mont.

TREES are on the front lines of our changing climate. And when the oldest trees in the world suddenly start dying, it’s time to pay attention.

North America’s ancient alpine bristlecone forests are falling victim to a voracious beetle and an Asian fungus. In Texas, a prolonged drought killed more than five million urban shade trees last year and an additional half-billion trees in parks and forests. In the Amazon, two severe droughts have killed billions more.

The common factor has been hotter, drier weather.

We have underestimated the importance of trees. They are not merely pleasant sources of shade but a potentially major answer to some of our most pressing environmental problems. We take them for granted, but they are a near miracle. In a bit of natural alchemy called photosynthesis, for example, trees turn one of the seemingly most insubstantial things of all — sunlight — into food for insects, wildlife and people, and use it to create shade, beauty and wood for fuel, furniture and homes.

For all of that, the unbroken forest that once covered much of the continent is now shot through with holes.

Humans have cut down the biggest and best trees and left the runts behind. What does that mean for the genetic fitness of our forests? No one knows for sure, for trees and forests are poorly understood on almost all levels. “It’s embarrassing how little we know,” one eminent redwood researcher told me.

What we do know, however, suggests that what trees do is essential though often not obvious. Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. In a campaign called Forests Are Lovers of the Sea, fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to bring back fish and oyster stocks. And they have returned.

Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution. A 2008 study by researchers at Columbia University found that more trees in urban neighborhoods correlate with a lower incidence of asthma.

In Japan, researchers have long studied what they call “forest bathing.” A walk in the woods, they say, reduces the level of stress chemicals in the body and increases natural killer cells in the immune system, which fight tumors and viruses. Studies in inner cities show that anxiety, depression and even crime are lower in a landscaped environment.

Trees also release vast clouds of beneficial chemicals. On a large scale, some of these aerosols appear to help regulate the climate; others are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. We need to learn much more about the role these chemicals play in nature. One of these substances, taxane, from the Pacific yew tree, has become a powerful treatment for breast and other cancers. Aspirin’s active ingredient comes from willows.

Trees are greatly underutilized as an eco-technology. “Working trees” could absorb some of the excess phosphorus and nitrogen that run off farm fields and help heal the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In Africa, millions of acres of parched land have been reclaimed through strategic tree growth.

Trees are also the planet’s heat shield. They keep the concrete and asphalt of cities and suburbs 10 or more degrees cooler and protect our skin from the sun’s harsh UV rays. The Texas Department of Forestry has estimated that the die-off of shade trees will cost Texans hundreds of millions of dollars more for air-conditioning. Trees, of course, sequester carbon, a greenhouse gas that makes the planet warmer. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science also found that water vapor from forests lowers ambient temperatures.

A big question is, which trees should we be planting? Ten years ago, I met a shade tree farmer named David Milarch, a co-founder of the Champion Tree Project who has been cloning some of the world’s oldest and largest trees to protect their genetics, from California redwoods to the oaks of Ireland. “These are the supertrees, and they have stood the test of time,” he says.

Science doesn’t know if these genes will be important on a warmer planet, but an old proverb seems apt. “When is the best time to plant a tree?” The answer: “Twenty years ago. The second-best time? Today.”

Jim Robbins is the author of the forthcoming book “The Man Who Planted Trees.”

With opportunities for presentations across a broad range of partnership themes and a variety of proposal format options, the program committee is striving to create the most educational, innovative and engaging program yet.

Proposals can be submitted online at www.arborday.org/pcf through April 9, 2012.  Email questions about your proposal or call Randy Gordon at 402-473-9617.

We’re extremely pleased to see Urban Greening mentioned in the publication.  Urban greening efforts provide opportunities to achieve GHG mitigation goals, improve health, and establish a foundation for adaptation to the increasing heat projected for virtually all of California. Urban greening contributes to a reduction in GHGs, air pollution, harmful ground-level ozone, urban heat island effects, and stress.  For more information, please see pages 25-27.

The guide is available here.

Program agenda, driving directions and registration information is available online at http://ccuh.ucdavis.edu/events/carbon-offsets-the-urban-forest-1/carbon-offsets.

Click HERE for access.

Your $65 registration includes parking, AM coffee/tea & scones and a gourmet boxed lunch.

Please send workshop inquiries to the CA Center for Urban Horticulture at ude.sivadcu.seacnull@hucc or call 530.752.6642.

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $150,000 to California ReLeaf, a nonprofit organization based in Sacramento, Calif., aimed at enhancing environmental education. ReLeaf’s mission is to empower grassroots efforts to preserve and protect California’s urban and community forests.

California ReLeaf will announce a solicitation for their small grant program in August 2012, and after a review process, will award up to $5,000 to each qualified organization. Eligible applicants include any local educational institutions, colleges or universities, state education or environmental agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

“These EPA funds will infuse new life into local environmental programs at a time when communities are facing tight budgets,” said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA’s Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. “I encourage schools and community groups to apply for these grants to enhance the stewardship of urban forests in their own yards and cities.”

“Today’s announcement is a significant win-win for Sacramento,” said Kevin Johnson, Mayor of Sacramento. “This grant will ensure our region continues to be a national leader in the green movement and enhances our efforts to improve the region’s ‘Green IQ’ – a key goal when we started the Greenwise Joint Venture. With the investment of the EPA, Sacramento is primed to help educate the next generation of environmental leaders and take its commitment to green to the next level.”

Nearly $100,000 of EPA’s grant money will be redistributed by ReLeaf for 20 community projects that will engage local citizens in creating effective opportunities for environmental education learning through projects centered on tree planting and tree care. Sub-awardees will need to reach a diverse array of audiences within local communities by implementing projects designed to provide environmental education on urban forestry benefits related to air, water and climate change throughout California. The projects should provide hands-on education, give communities a sense of “ownership,” and develop life-long behavior changes leading to further positive actions.

The EPA’s environmental education sub-grants program is a competitive program to increase public awareness about environmental issues, and give project participants the skills necessary to make informed environmental decisions. Approximately $150,000 will be awarded to one applicant in each of EPA’s ten Regions to manage this program.

For more information about California ReLeaf’s sub-grant competition that will launch in mid-2012, please send an e-mail to gro.faelerainrofilacnull@ofni.

For more information about EPA’s environmental education program in Region 9 contact Sharon Jang at vog.apenull@norahs.gnaj.

For more information on the web please visit: http://www.epa.gov/enviroed/grants.html