Through an Indiana University program, volunteers in four Indiana cities gathered in November to plant trees and bolster their community’s resilience to climate change.
The plantings served as a capstone to a yearlong collaboration with IU’s Environmental Resilience Institute to assess local tree canopies and make plans to expand them.
Residents of Elkhart, Evansville, Richmond and Warsaw dug holes for dozens of new trees this month, kickstarting a planting spree that will amount to 400 urban trees by year’s end. Placement of the trees was informed by community planting plans developed through the institute’s Resilience Cohort.
The project is the first phase of a five-year grant awarded by the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry program and led by ERI Managing Director Sarah Mincey, an associate professor with the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs.
