Guests from Washington, D.C.
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Mark Buscaino
Mark Buscaino describes his Helsinki trip as a portal that opened his eyes to urban forestry in other places. “Here’s a country where they have been planting over decades, over centuries to maintain the wooded environment in their cities,” says Buscaino. “I was amazed at the lengths they go to make sure tree plantings are successful, right down to assuring adequate space for rooting volume.”
In such staff of the City of Helsinki Public Works Department as project manager Elina Nummi and field arborist Sami Kiema, Buscaino experienced a ready curiosity about non-profit programming and Casey Tree’s educational outreach. “There’s strong interest in our community engagement, our communications and comprehensive mapping (Casey Trees maps and documents all its tree plantings). Helsinki doesn’t currently program much in the way of public activities, but when they do, they’ve experienced enormous response.”
The May 2009 seminar hosted by the Embassy of Finland presented Helsinki/Washington viewpoints on raising environmental awareness to an audience of District government representatives, Casey Trees citizen foresters, a volunteer group of 750 citizens trained in urban forestry techniques. Elina Nummi from the Public Works Department of Helsinki and Kaisa Pajanen and Johanna Joutsiniemi, from Helsinki’s Environment Center spoke and engaged the audience in discussion, as did key staff from Casey Trees. “It was wonderful to have an opportunity to involve our volunteers and show them firsthand the breadth and depth of our resources and global engagement. They plant trees but don’t get to often see the broader view. The most important effective tool is the exchange of people; you have to get people working together, it’s very powerful.”
To that end, Armi Koskela, a student studying communication and community engagement, and Sami Kiema will be coming to DC for 3 months in spring 2010 to work with Casey Trees to better understand the nonprofit’s approach. Armi will work with Casey Tree’s education department which promotes urban forestry awareness and education through a diverse collection of lectures, workshops, demonstrations, celebrations, and tree walks. Sami will be working directly with field crews.
In the future Buscaino would like to see select staff go to Helsinki to further share ideas on how Casey Tree activities can be modified to bring the Helsinki community in and heighten awareness of the Public Works Department’s urban forestry activities. “Non-profits hire young idealistic folks, and when you have an organization built of people like that, you can make an incredible difference. We’ve got a 10- year road map of successes and failures to share, and I look forward to more.”