David MooreAt the 2015 ReLeaf Conference at SUNY ESF, it was fitting that ESF grad David Moore should be elected our new president. You can learn more about David from his profile last year on the blog. Here is David’s acceptance speech. 

Thank you for the opportunity to serve our state’s urban forestry council as president. It is my intention to uphold, and propel into the future, the values and efforts of those who came before me. Humbled by my peers and predecessors who share my mission and have fought hard to establish the principles and reputation of our young industry, I am grateful for your support.

You have taught me by example a pay-it-forward mentality that is rare in most industries. Early in my career I was nurtured by strangers who recognized that I shared a common mission with them. They took no issue with the fact that they would receive no material reward for helping me be successful in my urban forestry career. They helped me find the technical resources and guidance to do my job solely because we live on the same planet and are working towards benefiting the same environment. This ethic of selfless dedication is what draws me to our council and propels me through hard times in my everyday work.

How fortunate are we to have found each other as professionals and partners. In this life, there is no individual effort that can surpass the potential and actual accomplishments of a cooperative group. Imagine if the Lorax in the Dr. Seuss book could have teamed up with a team of other Lorax? How would the story have ended? That is the question we must ask ourselves as we consider the pursuits and collaborative potential of our urban forestry council.

We are at a pivotal point in history that makes our council’s work exceptionally relevant and necessary. Our state and nation are undergoing a swell in urban population growth–our partners at the U.S. Forest Service who have quantified current trends and projected future trends can verify this. Every town and city that has existing infrastructure is due for a swell over the next 30 years. Our state’s largest city, which accounts for 45% of our state’s population, is projected to grow by a million more people between 2007 and 2030.

The generation of foresters who came before me laid the groundwork in establishing urban forestry as a strategy for city planning and not just city beautification. Through tireless research and demonstrative efforts, they have validated tree planting, management, and maintenance as necessary measures for making town and city life functional and desirable.

Similarly to how networks of influential and dedicated conservationists, foresters, and policy makers helped develop public policy that protected the Adirondack Park, we now have the opportunity to provide advocacy for protecting the value of forests where the average New Yorker experiences them in everyday life–in the towns, villages, and cities where we live.

We have every right to feel optimistic about our progress and our potential. In New York City, the past ten years have provided us legislation that protects biodiversity in parkland and natural areas, that protects street trees at their full replacement value, and that mandates a street tree be planted every 25 feet along the frontage of any new real estate development. These laws represent a shift in cultural perception of the value of trees in our lives and a justification of our efforts. We aren’t just planting trees anymore, we are establishing green infrastructure by installing air filters, street cooling features, and storm water filters. The justifications for our efforts continue to be quantified in new and exciting ways as technology and research evolve with the times.

Knowing the importance and potential that progressive, technically informed tree planting and management will have on our state in the face of urbanization, can we afford to not help each other succeed? The benefit we bring each other through support, camaraderie, and networking is ten-fold the cost of the time it takes. Our strength is in our diversity of experience and in numbers. Our call to action is the need to establish livable, desirable, sustainable communities in the face of urbanization. It won’t take rocket science, but it will take tree science. It’s a technical field, but also a quite natural one.

With these words, I wish to unite us by our common interests and intentions of creating a better world for future generations through urban forestry. Together as a diverse group, seeing our differences as our strengths and our commonalities as our life blood, we are equipped to carry on our state’s tradition of environmental greatness through the 21st century.