In New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward, Arthur Johnson has witnessed firsthand the vital role trees play, from filtering pollution to providing respite from the scorching summer sun.
But two decades after Hurricane Katrina decimated 200,000 trees across the city, including many in Johnson's own neighborhood, efforts to restore the tree canopy face a significant setback.
The US Forest Service's recent decision to terminate a $75 million grant to the Arbor Day Foundation has dealt a blow to communities struggling to afford tree planting initiatives.
The program, designed to bring green spaces to underserved neighborhoods, has become the latest casualty of the Trump administration's campaign against environmental justice.
The grant termination has had a direct impact on organizations like Sustaining Our Urban Landscape (SOUL), an environmental group working in New Orleans' historically Black communities. Having already planted over 1,600 trees, SOUL has now been forced to halt plans for an additional 900, leaving a void in the ongoing effort to restore the city's green spaces.
Those are trees that largely low-income residents otherwise couldn’t afford to plant or maintain, said the 71-year-old Johnson, who runs a local nonprofit, the Lower 9th Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development, that has helped SOUL with its work and done some tree plantings of its own in the area.
“You're not just cutting out the tree, the environment” with such cuts, said Johnson. If those trees aren’t replaced and more aren’t continually added, “it really takes a toll on the sustainability of the Lower 9th Ward and its community.”
The benefits of trees are vast. They capture stormwater and replenish groundwater. They help clean the air in polluted areas, improve mental health, and cool air and surfaces of the built environment, especially during heat waves that are growing more intense and frequent with climate change.
One study by the UCLA Luskin Center found that shade can reduce heat stress on the human body from 25 percent to 35 percent throughout the day. And much research shows that low-income and communities of color have fewer trees — and are hotter — than better-off neighborhoods.
The Arbor Day Fund's grant was part of former President Joe Biden's signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which sent $1.5 billion to the forest service’s Urban and Community Forestry program. In a Feb. 14 email canceling the grant, the Forest Service wrote that the award "no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and activities.”
But Dan Lambe, the Arbor Day Foundation's chief executive, said the projects weren't just going to serve disadvantaged people. They were going to benefit every member of the community, he said. In total, 105 nonprofits, municipalities and Indigenous organizations — from Alaska to Florida to Maine — have lost funding for critical environmental projects, the foundation said.
“This was an opportunity to make a really meaningful impact on people’s lives, so it’s been disappointing," Lambe said.
The Forest Service didn't say if other recipients of the $1.5 billion forestry investment also had grants terminated. In a statement, its parent agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the agency was following directions to comply with Trump's executive orders.
“Protecting the people and communities we serve, as well as the infrastructure, businesses, and resources they depend on to grow and thrive, remains a top priority for the USDA and the Forest Service,” the agency said.
For SOUL in New Orleans, losing the grant means they don't have the money to water trees already planted, and they've had to drop plans to hire three people. Another $2.5 million grant is on hold due to the federal funding freeze, and founder and executive director Susannah Burley said the nonprofit's survival is uncertain. Its annual budget is a little more than $1 million.
“We kind of are lost because we don’t know if we should be planning to close our doors or if we should be planning for next season,” she said.
For others who were set to get Arbor Day Foundation money, the loss is not existential but still devastating. In the city-county of Butte-Silver Bow in southwest Montana, forester Trevor Peterson was going to use a $745,250 grant to buy chain saws, rigging gear and other essential tools, remove up to 200 dead or dying cottonwoods and plant as many as 1,000 trees as part of a decades-long effort to replenish trees cut to make way for copper mining. He wanted to help organize large community events focused on education, hoping to impart the knowledge necessary for future stewardship of the urban forest.
“We will now have to go back to the drawing board to determine where to go from here,” he said.
Jackson County, Oregon, was awarded a $600,000 grant to replant trees after wildfires in 2020 destroyed thousands of homes and charred more than 60,000 trees. The town of Talent lost two-thirds of its trees.
The nonprofit Oregon Urban Rural and Community Forestry, founded in the fires' aftermath, fought for years to get a single dollar, recalled Mike Oxendine, the group's founder and director.
The grant money from the Arbor Day Foundation was being used to help low-income and disadvantaged mobile home park residents — among the hardest-hit by the fires — identify and remove hazardous trees badly burned or killed, and replant trees for shade and cooling.
“This is a rural red area that needs it badly,” said Oxendine. “We hit temperatures that exceed 110 degrees every summer now. We go through massive droughts and we’re always prone to wildfire here.”
The loss of funding will create a “tremendous burden” for the organization, he said.
