President's Message Fall 2014

By Alexandra Avery


Trees, Trees, Trees! This has been the autumn of discontent for so many trees around the state.

Earlier in the season, Hurricane Iselle blew down many Albizias in Puna. O'ahu's Lyon Arboritum and the UH Manoa campus have been diligently culling vastly overgrown Albizias. The State Highways Division has cut out all tree planting from their new roadway management policy, and cut off water sources to many roadway trees of significant stature.  The Kaka'ako developers seem to forsake the public health value of large canopy trees in their ambitious building designs. 

With so much to protect in the constant endeavor to capitalize on our natural beauty, we have been in a constant struggle to maintain and expand the far-reaching health benefits and aesthetics that our large canopy trees provide.

Enter Mayor Caldwell. O'ahu's Mayor gets a gold star in our Exceptional Tree Initiative for coming to the aid of an old Monkeypod tree on O'ahu Avenue in his neighborhood of Manoa. We thank the Mayor for reviewing this case and deciding in favor of these majestic trees.

You are all invited to our annual Nov. 15 Full Circle Gathering, this year at the North shore of O'ahu. Read more about it in this Green Leaf. I am proud of our TOC Board and all of our Branches for the community improvements that have been achieved with volunteer help.

All of our planting initiatives and projects are funded by you, our volunteers and members. Please scroll through our Greenleaf blog to learn more about our work, and consider how you can help us achieve a more healthy canopy across the state. Don't want to work a shovel; you can just donate! Click here to find out more.