Town of Davidson Press Release

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Why are our trees wearing price tags?

Residents who pass by Roosevelt Wilson Park or the Village Green during the next week might wonder why so many of the town’s trees are sporting price tags.

The price tags are part of an unusual and highly visible town-wide Arbor Day project. The project, spearheaded by the Natural Assets and Tree Advisory Board, the Community School of Davidson and the Davidson Lands Conservancy, is designed to help educate Davidson residents about the value of trees. 8th graders from the Community School of Davidson kicked off the project by hanging tags at Roosevelt Wilson on Friday, March 11 and other tags will be hung on trees at the Village Green this week. All tags will stay up through the town’s celebration of Arbor Day on March 18.

The project is part of a pairing of events that will help raise the awareness of the value of trees in Davidson: on Tuesday, March 8, the town was awarded its first Tree City USA designation, an honor that has been given to just 72 North Carolina communities and just 3,000 nationwide.

But these price tags don't just show what someone would pay if purchasing a similar tree at a nursery. Instead, the project – which will tag about 50 trees around town – will help to illustrate the economic value of these trees as they make our town a cleaner, healthier place: With the help of the National Tree Benefit Calculator, the project put a dollar value on the ten-year contribution that these trees make towards reducing air pollution, sequestering carbon and reducing storm water management costs.

What that translates into is tremendous savings, said Planning Manager Lauren Blackburn – staff liaison for the Natural Assets board – on Friday. “What Davidson’s canopy provides over the course of a decade is cleaner air, a natural weapon against global warming, cooler homes in the summer, warmer homes in the winter and thousands of dollars in savings,” she said. “Our trees add significantly to the wealth and value of our community, and it’s nice to be able to give our residents a picture of just how valuable they really are.”

Tyler Sholes*, one of the 8th graders from the Community School of Davidson who hung tags at Roosevelt Wilson, said the project was simple, but important. “This project was about us going around…and showing the community how valuable these trees are over a ten-year spectrum,” he said. Sholes said the class was charged with first identifying the trees, then measuring their circumference and entering the data into the calculator for an accurate picture of each tree’s annual contribution, which they then multiplied by ten.

Josh Main*, another 8th grade participant in the project, said the project has inspired him to look at trees differently. “I learned a lot about how much trees are worth,” he said. “I would have never thought they were worth so much.”

To calculate the benefit of the trees in your neighborhood, visit the National Tree Benefit Calculator athttp://www.treebenefits.com/calculator/. Tree City USA is a partnership between the N.C. Division of Forest Resources and the National Arbor Day Foundation; for more information on the foundation, visithttp://www.arborday.org/programs/treeCityUSA/index.cfm. For more Arbor Day resources, visit our home page and click on the “Arbor Day 2011” link, visit www.ci.davidson.nc.us/arborday, or click on the link below. To see pictures from Friday morning’s hanging of tags, visit the town’s Facebook page.

*CORRECTION: The names of Tyler Sholes and Josh Main were spelled incorrectly in the original release and were corrected on 3/15/2011. 

Arbor Day 2011