The Miami Heat didn’t get their name for nothing. But lately, the heat has started to feel unbearable as South Florida is hit by repeated heat warnings and only a few days of improving temperatures.

Study after study shows that South Florida will only get warmer in the coming years due to climate change. For the Miami-Dade administration under Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, doing something about it is a top priority.

The county was the first in the country to create the role of Chief Heat Officer to coordinate efforts to combat extreme heat. An official “heat season” has been declared from May through October. Public facilities are opened to the public as “cooling spots” during extreme heat.

In many ways, the most important pillar of efforts to combat extreme heat is the ambitious goal of covering 30 percent of the county’s area with tree canopy, as these significantly reduce surface temperatures.

READ MORE: As extreme temperatures continue in South Florida, the risk of heat-related illnesses increases

In fact, this has been the county government’s goal since 2006, a year after Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina devastated the county’s existing tree canopy.

But now, for the first time, the county has presented a comprehensive draft forestry plan for the city of Miami-Dade that will address these efforts across departments and the state.

The draft plan is open to public comment until August 26, after which the plan will be finalized.

WLRN recently spoke with Heating Authority Director Jane Gilbert about the plan and what it means for the county’s future. “We need to start treating trees as the critical infrastructure that they are,” she said.

The interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

WLRN: Why is it important for the county to make progress in planting more trees and increasing the proportion of more land covered by tree canopy?

Gilbert: There are numerous reasons to maintain and enhance our tree canopy, particularly in areas where tree canopy is currently very low or less than 20%.

My first goal is to reduce urban heat islands. We know that the areas with low tree canopy and higher surface temperatures are also the areas where there are very high numbers of heat-related emergency room visits and hospital admissions – four times as many as in high tree canopy zip codes.

So that’s the first reason: curbing our urban heat islands.

We know that trees are the best tool for keeping Miami-Dade cool. And if we meet our goals, we could even maintain our current temperatures through mid-century, which is remarkable. This is new research, but it’s really remarkable what we can do with trees.

But the benefits of trees go far beyond just heat reduction. They are excellent protection, absorbing rainwater and making us more resilient to flooding. They filter rainwater, protecting our bay and the quality of our water. They provide habitat for birds and all kinds of animals. They beautify a neighborhood, increase property values, and improve air quality. So there are many reasons why we want to plant more trees.

Matias J. Ocner

/

Miami-Herald

This draft plan identifies 15 areas that need more help than others – 15 census tracts. Where are these areas?

They are in Hialeah, Miami Gardens, Brownsville and some parts of South Dade.

These areas have historically had very little tree cover and generally higher than average poverty rates, so we are also doing this to reduce the social determinants of health in these areas.

Some areas, like Hialeah, Doral and Medley, have a lot of warehouses and industries. What are the obstacles to planting more shade trees in these heavily industrialized areas?

The industrial areas are definitely a challenge. However, in certain areas of Doral where there are a lot of warehouses, they have started to plant more trees and you can see the benefits of that. Some of the areas are residential, single-family home neighborhoods. But those are small lots and not necessarily the same amount of growth, so it’s going to be a challenge to plant trees in those areas.

Fortunately, the county was able to secure a $10 million grant from the U.S. Forest Service to plant street trees in these neighborhoods. We are now hiring public outreach staff to help us because we need that kind of direct outreach to property owners to make sure people are OK with the right trees in the right place and will continue to support those trees in the future.

Progress has been made since 2006, when these efforts began. Shortly after Hurricanes Wilma and Katrina, tree canopy cover was about 12%. But in the last few years, when The latest report showedprogress has stagnated at around 20%. Do we understand the reasons why it has stagnated there?

Although the development in the district as a whole has stabilized, we estimate that there are certain areas that have lost tree crowns and others that have gained.

We lost a lot of trees in Hurricane Irma in 2017. That’s one of the reasons we continue to see very rapid growth and development. Some trees are lost in the process. Also, state laws have been relaxed that allow property owners to cut down trees if their trees pose a threat to the health and safety of property or people without facing repercussions.

All of these have contributed to the loss. On the positive side, we have not lost any tree canopy overall, so some of our efforts have at least helped us to maintain what we also know from the assessment: we have many areas with great potential for tree planting.

And this is where it’s not just the county lands that matter, but also our partnerships with schools and the faith community. These will really help us to capitalise on the areas with the greatest potential for tree planting.

Planting trees is one thing. But an even more important part is probably caring for the trees. How does this plan address the care aspect?

We need to start treating trees as the critical infrastructure that they are. We started inventorying our trees last year and have now inventoried 350,000 trees in our parks. Now we will be putting out to tender additional inventory services – this is the first step to really understanding which trees need the most care.

Additionally, our mayor and commission have increased our budget significantly over the last few years. When the mayor took office, we were investing $1 million from the general fund for street tree planting and nothing for maintenance. In the last two years, that amount has been increased to $4 million, accounting for both planting and maintenance costs. We have made a lot of catching up over the last few years on deferred tree maintenance.

This includes things like pruning, trimming and fertilizing?

This primarily involves pruning and trimming trees as needed to ensure they stay healthy and don’t fall over in the middle of our hurricane season.

An important part of the plan is the training of so-called “voluntary community forest ambassadors”. What role is envisaged for volunteers and the community in general?

I am absolutely thrilled about our tree ambassador program.

We will work with community-based organizations to identify leaders from the 15 census locations we talked about and train them in tree conservation efforts, how to identify where to plant the right trees in the right place.

They help us organize community meetings to educate their neighbors on how to improve their neighborhoods by planting more trees. And they help us partner with local schools in their neighborhood and religious organizations.

The county hopes to purchase some private forest lands to protect under the Environmentally Endangered Lands program. How important is protecting the urban forest lands that already exist and what role does this play in the overall plan?

We have a unique native ecosystem here called the Pine Rocklands, which only exists in two other places in the Caribbean, and we have lost a lot of that habitat.

One of the main objectives that we will soon be implementing is to identify the areas of remaining pine forest, especially in the areas that need the tree cover the most. Because while individual trees provide a cooling benefit, whole forests provide a very different cooling benefit. Cooling, flood protection, habitat conservation, etc.

So we’re going to work to identify the areas that are best suited to the preservation and restoration of Pine Rocklands. We really need to try to get voters to support a new level of work to preserve ecologically vulnerable areas.

The draft plan says that in some areas there are too many so-called low-performing trees, such as palm trees, which look nice – they fit very well with the marketing of South Florida – but the argument is that they may not provide enough shade for what we really need. Should we expect fewer palm trees here in the future?

I think palms are great accents in a planting plan, but they shouldn’t be the focal point of a tree planting. So we’ll definitely continue to have palms. We identify in part with our palms, but we want to make sure we have trees that form a full canopy and also absorb rainwater.

Do you expect any opposition in this regard or have you received feedback from the community?

The only feedback I have seen so far on our plan is: more shade trees, fewer palm trees.