Trees of Environmental Justice

Adopt a tree today!

We are giving residents of Hyde Park & Mattapan free trees! The only catch is that you must agree to planting and taking care of the adopted tree for two years. We’ll deliver the tree to your home, providing a manual on tree-care and trunk-guards to deter rabbits.

Hyde Park & Mattapan were the only neighborhoods in Boston to lose more trees than gain, according t0 Boston’s latest tree-canopy assessment.

Native Trees, especially Oaks, are considered a keystone species — keystone meaning: essential — alongside reducing air-pollutants, lowering asthma rates, and cooling air temperatures, native trees have co-evolved with our native natural environment; they provide habitats and host a myriad of different animal species. Oaks can host more than 500 different species of caterpillars, and over 4,000 different species of animals and insects.

To put this into perspective:

Birds e.g, Chickadees, needs upwards to 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to successfully feed & raise their babies. A non-native tree, e.g, Kousa Dogwood, or a Bradford-Pear, can’t host our native insects, and therefore, birds can’t find insects to eat from them.

The benefits provided by a native trees start within the moment they become seedlings — the moment they are planted into the ground.