More Trees More Life

Andy Tsubasa Field · Eugene Weekly · March 15, 2018

Featuring Kathleen Wolf, Nature and Health researcher

Kathleen Wolf, a researcher at the University of Washington, says that when she was an urban forester in the ’80s, requesting from the city of Key West more resources for street trees, her proposal wasn’t taken seriously.

“I was told ‘Oh trees, they are so pretty. But we have the fire and police department, and all these other needs,’” Wolf says.

Wolf, however, says that recent research shows tree abundance as essential for a community’s wellbeing over a lifetime.

As a keynote speaker Saturday, March 5, at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference, an annual gathering of environmental lawyers and activists, Wolf presented research on the effects of tree abundance on psychological and physical health.