Fortunately the University of Michigan's campus is in no danger of looking like the stump-littered landscape depicted in
The Lorax (unless people decide they can't live without thneeds). For the fourth consecutive year, the Arbor Day Foundation has awarded U-M a
Tree Campus USA designation. U-M is one of 115 campuses out of over 2,000 nationwide to receive the award for 2011.
Award criteria, according to Marvin Pettway, a grounds senior supervisor responsible for forest and horticulture maintenance at U-M, include having a forest management plan and an active forest management group comprised of university students, faculty, and staff, and the surrounding community.
U-M planted 531 trees in 2011, with 150 more to go in this spring. And volunteers may add another 50 later this spring and summer, Pettway says. The university is actively managing 15,000-plus trees in its landscape; another 30,000 stand in various woodlots. "We work to have a very diverse campus forest, and we have a goal of having no more than ten percent of any species," he adds. About 110 different species reside on campus – maples are the most common, with about an eight-percent share.
Pettway points to "All the ecological value having to do with water-saving quality, soil improvement, soil retention, oxygen-carbon exchange, and also there's the major feature of the aesthetics and the calming effect [trees have] on people emotionally, which has got to be considered a major part of our campus environment."
Source: Marvin Pettway, U-M grounds senior supervisor
Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
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