Brian Lair on WNYC, and for our last few minutes for today and for this week, we're going to look up a bit and talk about New York City's tree canopy, the trees that shade us from the sun and summer,

and right now are in beautiful bloom in many places. Today, as the last Friday in April,

is Arbor Day, a day specifically set aside for planting trees. And the city in particular is

planning to plant a lot of trees in the next few years to take that tree canopy

from covering 23% of the city up to 30%. That means adding over a million trees, if my math is right.

And this matter is not just a scenery, also equity and public health, right? Lower income areas of

the city, you know this, tend to have fewer street

trees leading to higher temperature spikes in heat waves and the dangers that come with them. So with

me to talk about New York City trees on this Arbor Day, including New York's designation as a tree

city, the city's brand new urban forest plan as well. We're joined by Dan Lamb, CEO of the

Arbor Day Foundation and Ben Osborne, Assistant Commissioner for Forestry and Horticulture at the New York

City Parks Department. Dan and Ben, welcome to WNYC. Happy Arbor Day. Happy Arbor Day to you. It's great to be

with you, Brian.

Ben, I'll bet people are surprised to learn that New York City has an assistant commissioner for

forestry. What do you do? So thank you. Good morning, Brian. So yeah, New York City is a tree

city. We are a very, believe it or not, forested city. And so at the Parks Department,

we are responsible for the care, maintenance, and planting of trees along our streets in our

landscape parks and in our forests. Dan Lamb, are other cities paying this kind of attention

to their tree canopies as what I laid out in the intro that New York is embarking on?

We are seeing more and more cities embracing trees as a must have in this day, not just a nice

to have. And New York City is a world-class urban forest community. They've got great leadership

driving the tree management in this city, but they're also leading the way as others

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