Cities and towns of all sizes across Indiana are putting their knowledge of the benefit of trees to seed … or seedling.
The Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry (DoF) has recognized 64 Indiana cities and towns as Tree Cities USA, a program sponsored by the National Arbor Day Foundation and the National Association of State Foresters.
The newest Tree Cities in Indiana are Alexandria, Fishers, Rensselaer and Rising Sun.
Others on the list include Anderson, Angola, Auburn, Avon, Beech Grove, Bedford, Berne, Bloomington, Carmel, Chesterton, Columbia City, Crown Point, Culver, Decatur, Delphi, Dyer, East Chicago, Edgewood, Elkhart, Evansville, Fort Wayne, Fortville, Fremont, Geneva, Goshen, Greencastle, Greendale, Greenfield, Grissom Air Reserve Base, Huntington and Indianapolis.
Rounding out the list are LaPorte, Lafayette, Madison, Michigan City, Middlebury, Mishawaka, Montpelier, Mount Ayr, Muncie, Munster, Nappanee, New Harmony, Noblesville, North Manchester, Richmond, Rochester, Russiaville, Salem, South Bend, Syracuse, Terre Haute, Tipton, Valparaiso, Vincennes, West Lafayette, Westfield, Whiting, Winamac and Zionsville.
In 2008, Indiana Tree City municipalities and non-profits planted 15,036 trees, removed 5,621 dying or dead trees, and pruned 20,792 trees.
"These communities are working aggressively to improve their environmental and economic health by caring for their urban forest,” said John Seifert, State Forester.
Electric utilities and universities were honored by two companion programs of the Tree City USA program. Tree Line USA recognizes electric utilities that perform proper tree care on trees in their area as they strive to remove tree and power line conflicts. Tree Campus USA is a new program for colleges and universities that recognizes campuses that have committed to managing their trees and involving students in the process.
Indiana’s Tree Line utilities are Indianapolis Power and Light, Mishawaka Utilities, Northern Indiana Public Service Company, and, most recently, Vectren Energy.
Indiana University and Indiana State University are the state's first Tree Campuses.
For more information on any of these programs, contact Pam Louks, State Urban Forestry Coordinator at (317) 591-1170 or urbanforestry@dnr.IN.gov.
Indiana ranks 23rd out of all the states and the District of Columbia for number of Tree Cities. The first Hoosier tree city was Bloomington in 1984. The state's largest Tree City is Indianapolis. The smallest in the state is Mount Ayr, population 147.
Nationwide there are more than 3,300 Tree Cities, with more than 125 million combined residents.
