This exciting program will help our community take climate action by planting native trees.  Over the next 3 years we aim to get 30,000 trees into the ground in local schools, home gardens and public spaces. 

Trees help reduce the impact of greenhouse gas emissions by:

• providing carbon capture and storage

• reducing peak energy demands by providing shade and cooling and

• making our communities more resilient to extreme weather

Another wonderful side-effect of planting native trees is increasing biodiversity, and helping our native animals by providing habitat. 

The average tree will capture 10 kilos of Carbon Dioxide per year for the first 20 years.*This means our goal to help our community get 30,000 native trees in the ground will help remove 300 metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere per year for the next 20 years!**  That’s a whooping 6,000 tons of CO2 over 20 years!Climate change is transforming our world.  Our Trees4Resilience program is one way that MRL can address the challenge of climate change by increasing local climate resilience and contributing to local, state, national and global efforts to lower emissions. Our goals include increasing awareness in our community of local nature-based climate solutions through:

• field practicums

• community events and actions

• bringing action activities to our local schools and

• encouraging more people to plant trees

*To determine the amount of carbon dioxide a tree can absorb, we combine average planting densities with a conservative estimate of carbon per hectare to estimate that the average tree absorbs an average of 10 kilograms, or 22 pounds, of carbon dioxide per year for the first 20 years. This methodology is based on the Winrock International Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) Carbon Storage Calculator. It applies data from the Global Removals Database developed by Winrock International under funding from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This review collated data on the biomass accumulation rates for a set of FLR activities (natural regeneration, planted forests and woodlots, agroforestry, and mangrove restoration) across the globe and global CO2 removal rates. Their review is derived from data on biomass accumulation from over 330 published studies and reports.

**Trees will still continue to pull Carbon Dioxide out of the air for their entire lives, but the amount slows down once the tree is mature.