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I went to a talk Thursday at Foster Botanical Garden with the compelling title: “Racist Roots: How Racism has Affected Trees and People in our Cities and What We Can Do About it.”

The speaker Christine Carmichael — a tree consultant from Lansing, Michigan — was in Honolulu to lead discussions here and on Maui on her book of the same title.

Carmichael’s book is based on research she did for her doctorate in forestry at Michigan State University to determine why neighborhoods of people of color and areas with low-income residents generally have fewer and less healthy trees than wealthier neighborhoods and what steps can be taken to ensure tree equity.

Tree equity, in her words, is an initiative to make sure everyone regardless of race or income has equal access to the kinds of trees they want to benefit their neighborhoods  — most importantly, that outsiders do not impose trees on them but that the residents themselves determine what’s planted.

She focused her doctoral dissertation on why 25% of people in the low-income, primarily Black neighborhoods in Detroit between 2011 and 2014 said “No, thanks “ to a nonprofit’s offer of free trees.

From interviews, she found that much of the resistance was not because the people disliked trees but rather because of racism in the past toward their neighborhoods that left them underserved without needed infrastructure including continuing care for city trees.

Many of the trees in the Detroit neighborhoods were dead or dying — some on the edge of dangerously falling on peoples’ roofs.

Of the 20,000 trees deemed dead or dangerous in Detroit, only 2,000 had been removed in 2014 when Carmichael began her research. Neighbors lacked confidence in the city to care for trees.

The degradation of the Detroit neighborhoods started in the 1930s after many whites slowly moved out to the suburbs, leaving behind neighborhoods dominated by people of color. Banks began discriminatory “redlining,” the practice of denying mortgages, insurance loans and other financial services to the residents of certain areas because of their race or ethnicity. 

Residents became renters because they were denied loans to buy their own homes. Government agencies slowly disinvested in the areas. A sense of pride and ownership in neighborhoods diminished along with an interest in planting and caring for trees.

Carmichael’s book features lessons she learned from her research on how nonprofits and government agencies can encourage communities to invest in the planting and care of trees.

She says residents should be involved in the choice of the trees and part of discussions on the continuing care for them with an acknowledgment of past racial traumas that left their neighborhoods neglected and attention to the cultural values of an area.

“It doesn’t work to come in as a savior to say ‘This is what we think is good for you,'” she said.

Rather, she says, the first effort should build trust and find a “neighborhood ambassador” to involve communities in deciding which trees to plant and how they will be maintained in the future.

“Trees can only provide benefits if they receive continuing care,” said Carmichael.

Trees in forests thrive on their own but urban trees must fight continual stresses such as heat, pollution, encasement in concrete, lack of water and vandalism.

Daniel Dinell, executive director of Trees For Honolulu’s Future, says resistance to planting trees in Honolulu has less to do with past incidents of racism than many other factors. These include neighborhoods struggling economically with no time to be community stewards of municipal trees, owners of small private lots with no room to plant greenery and many city streets on Oahu with no planting strips or sidewalks for trees.

Trees for Honolulu’s Future is a nonprofit dedicated to filling the island with trees to enhance the quality of life in the face of climate change. 

Dinell, who was at Carmichael’s book talk, said the message of community involvement especially resonated with him.

“You can’t think you can ride in on a white horse and tell people who have lived in a neighborhood all their lives what trees to plant for their benefit,” he said.

Roxanne Adams, who was also at the book talk, said later it is also important to have community members watching over urban trees to protect them from vandalism.

She says vandals at Kaiaka Bay Beach Park in Haleiwa on Feb. 19 yanked out five milo trees and threw them in the ocean. Adams is the administrator of Honolulu’s Division of Urban Forestry.

She says the division makes an effort to be invited into communities.

“We don’t want to stomp in and tell them what’s good for them when it comes to tree planting,” she said.

In January, urban foresters had to remove seven coconut palms from Tracks Beach Park on the Waianae Coast, all of them killed by coconut rhinoceros beetles.

Adams said the plan was to replace the damaged trees with small milo or kou trees and not coconut palms that were certain to be killed by the same invasive pest.

But the people of the Nanakuli and Maili said they wanted coconut trees because they were culturally important to them.

“We researched together to find a different kind of palm that was more resistant to the rhinoceros beetle,” Adams said.

On the day of the planting, it was pouring. But more than 100 people showed up, including community leaders, Hawaiian cultural groups and children from six schools on the Leeward Coast, braving the storm to participate.

There was chanting in olelo Hawaii as participants carefully put netting around each palm to prevent beetles from killing the young trees.

“It was amazing and moving to see everyone standing in the pelting rain to give their full attention to the planting. It was the best day I’d ever had at work,” said Adams.

As an added bonus after the ceremony, community members agreed to participate in the care and protection of the coconut trees in the future.

“It was rewarding to be welcomed in to be a part of this,” she said

This is the key message of author Carmichael: “It is important to give communities agency that they might never (have) had in the past about urban tree plantings.”