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Planting Fruit Trees in Food Deserts

The USDA Economic Research Service publishes the Food Environment Atlas to document, county by county throughout the United States, the percentage of households with limited access to grocery stores—and therefore to adequate nutrition. The interactive map aims to provide a spatial overview of communities’ abilities to access healthy food, but, so far, it doesn’t allow users to drill down to the level of neighborhoods.

In Los Angeles County, known “food deserts” include areas of South L.A. and the Northeast San Fernando Valley.… Read more >>

Photo: Mike Lewis

Tiny Pests Pose Big Threats to Native Trees

You won’t see it if you’re not looking for it, but you’ll know it was there. No bigger than a baby’s fingernail, the gold-spotted oak borer (GSOB) can devastate a 300-year-old oak tree that has withstood storms and quakes and even the quick and astounding rise of urban pollution in the 20th century. But if individual trees were all that was at stake, the oak borer wouldn’t pose such a threat. The truth is, this invasive pest could wipe out every native oak in California.… Read more >>

Three Big Days, One Simple Act


While April 22 is just around the corner and Earth Day is a wonderful time to reflect and celebrate this incredible planet, this month there are two other days that highlight hugely important environmental issues. March 21 is International Day of Forests and March 22 is World Water Day.

How to celebrate? After all, these days commemorate such enormous global issues. If I had to choose one action, it would be this: plant a tree.

With the simple act of planting a tree, each of us can help maintain the urban forest and shift the water crisis, all with one easy but profound step.… Read more >>

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Human Help Needed to Restore Nature to the Angeles Forest

The devastating Station Fire of 2009 destroyed 160,000 acres of wilderness in the Angeles National Forest in the mountains surrounding Los Angeles—and fully 11,000 of those acres burned too deep in the soil for natural seed regeneration. So every season TreePeople and the U.S. Forest Service need lots of extra hands to help plant trees while the soil conditions and temperature are optimal.

We’re in the third planting season with our partners at Forest Aid: Angeles. To meet our 2013 goal we must plant 5,000 more seedlings than last year—for a total of 15,000 new trees.… Read more >>

Jim Hardie, TreePeople 216,000 gallon cistern

How TreePeople Catches Every Drop

Is Los Angeles a desert? Our city gets about 15 inches of rainfall annually, slightly more precipitation than, say, Missoula, Montana (though we have fewer days per year that are considered “wet”). Did you know this is enough to serve a fairly large population and irrigate its urban greenery?

But every time it rains an inch in the city of L.A., 3.8 billion gallons of runoff are sent to sea, sweeping trash, toxins, and bacteria into waterways and polluting our beaches and ocean.… Read more >>