CRRA 2022 Conference & Tradeshow

State Urban Forester, Resource Protection & Improvement

California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is a department of the California Natural Resources Agency. It is responsible for fire protection in various areas under state responsibility totaling 31 million acres, as well as the administration of the state's private and public forests. In addition, the department provides varied emergency services in 36 of the state's 58 counties via contracts with local governments. Join Cal Fire’s state urban forester as he discusses the organization’s urban forestry grant projects which have helped implement urban wood recycling policies throughout various municipalities. Learn about what impact recycling urban wood has on climate change as a critical tool to mitigating environmental impacts while also improving the health of local urban forests & the community.  Project examples will include mulch utilization for water conservation, wood biomass for energy and biochar generation, and creation of lumber and durable products from urban trees.  Local use, reuse, limiting transportation, carbon capture, serving disadvantaged/low-income communities, and environmental health are recurring goals for all projects.

Director of Natural Resource Sustainability

Through the powerhouse partnership between West Coast Arborists, inc., a family-owned tree maintenance & management provider, & Taylor Guitars, the world-renowned guitar manufacturer they are reimagining the traditional wood materials supply chain through the urban wood initiative. Around the world, municipalities struggle to maintain urban tree cover and cost effectively remove city trees at the end of their lives. Traditionally these trees are removed, chipped, mulched, or landfilled at taxpayer expense. To address these issues, WCA & Taylor Guitars launched an urban wood campaign to make high-quality guitars using instrument-grade wood species like Shamel ash, with more species actively planned. Learn about the urban wood campaign and our vision to create a new economic model that builds municipal infrastructure, grows the urban canopy, creates jobs & supports a more sustainable “farm-to-table” approach to making guitars and other products.

Manager, Urban Wood

25 years ago, West Coast Arborists, Inc., (WCA) started an urban wood recycling program in collaboration with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF). Since a number of trees living within our City streets and parks eventually decline and require removal it became imperative to identify ways to salvage what we could. All trees have a life cycle, so we are making every effort to save the trees we can from ending up in landfills. When trees need to be removed from the Urban Forest, we preserve their natural beauty and also limit carbon emissions by salvaging trees lost during storms, disease, or normal senescence and recycling this wood into usable raw lumber. Our urban wood offers a story unlike any other, as they’ve been salvaged from our streets… A true Street Tree Revival. In this presentation we will introduce you to recycling from the contractor perspective as an alternative to dumping, means of eliminating waste, & its success as a revenue generating stream utilizing the principles of a closed-loop system, which aim to keep it local. We will also discuss the longstanding partnership with developing the Urban Wood Network (UWN) and accomplishments in wood utilization. The UWN is a rapidly growing collective of members and their efforts to launch local networks, demonstration projects, and educational programs to get industry members connected and customers interested in urban wood.