Wild Fall Festival at Lincoln's Pioneers Park offers small solution to tree eradication
The Lincoln Parks and Recreation Department hosted the Wild Fall Festival and Tree Giveaway on Saturday, offering a solution to tree loss in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in the city and Lancaster County.
The free event was created in partnership with Pioneers Park, where the festival was hosted. The department gave out 250 young trees of various locally grown species on a first-come-first serve basis with planting and care instructions.
The giveaway is part of an ongoing move by the Parks and Recreation Department to replace trees that have been damaged or destroyed by storms and by an invasive species of beetle, the Emerald ash Borer.
"In other communities, it devastates the ash tree population, essentially zero survival rate on that," said Mike Comstock, the parks operations coordinator for the department.
According to the department's website , the problem with the Emerald Ash Borer lies not in the metallic-green, adult beetles, but with their larvae, which feed on the inside of ash trees and disrupt their ability to transport water and nutrients.
Comstock said ash trees in Lincoln are being removed as part of a response plan the department has for preventing the beetles from spreading, save for 5000 of them around the city that are being treated with an insecticide.
According to the plan, which was adopted by the City Council in 2018, a survey of all public trees in Lincoln done in July 2017 revealed that about 12% of them were ash trees.
The Nebraska Forest Service estimated that there could be another 40,000 to 50,000 ash trees on private property.
Amy and Troy Burgess, who own 40 acres of land outside of Malcolm, have removed about 20 trees from their property this year because of the Emerald Ash Borer and Dutch elm disease, they said, leaving them with no shade and no windbreak around their house.
Amy Burgess said while waiting in line for a tree that Troy Burgess has been treating the remaining trees with insecticides.
"That right there is really pricey, just to try to save some of our trees," Amy Burgess said. "So having a free tree giveaway where we can actually monitor them, it's really beneficial for us."
As part of the established response plan, the department has created the Adopt-an-Ash Program, in which Lincoln residents can apply for a no-cost permit to "adopt" ash street trees by their property and pay for ongoing treatment.
The park offered several activities for the festival, including wagon rides touring the prairie, guided woodland explorations, tours of historic buildings on the property and presentations on plants, animals and insects.
"100% we love Pioneers Park," said Claire Bridge, who attended the festival with her husband, Aaron and their 7-month-old daughter Jane.
They got a Princeton American elm tree for their yard, Claire Bridge said, to replace the 70-foot tall oak tree they had to remove after a large storm hit Lincoln in late July.
While there, Jane got to do art activities sponsored by the LUX Center for the Arts and the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators.
Comstock said tree giveaways have been happening for the past five years, but this is the first time the department has partnered with Pioneers Park to have one during a park event.
"It's always nice to have a way to add more trees into our community," said Jamie Kelley, the Nature Center Coordinator for Pioneers Park. "Trees not only add shade and help with energy saving in homes, they're also a part of our natural environment, and provide habitat for lots of different animals and birds and insects too."
Kelley hopes that people that came to the event walked away with more curiosity and willingness to explore the outdoors.
"That doesn't have to be here at the Pioneers Park Nature Center, that can be in their own backyard, neighborhood park," Kelley said. "Anywhere that they can find little pieces of wild wherever they might go."
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