TreePeople

TreePeople is a California based nonprofit environmental advocacy group located in Los Angeles.

TreePeople promotes sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, support for volunteer community-based action, and advocacy. It focuses on increasing the region's urban forest by supporting people in planting and caring for trees at homes, on school yards, and in neighborhoods. It also supports volunteers in restoring damaged local forest ecosystems in the Santa Monica Mountains, Angeles National Forest and San Bernardino National Forest.

Beyond simply planting and caring for trees, TreePeople works to promote urban watershed management, using green infrastructure to address critical urban water issues. It educates and advocates for water conservation and stormwater capture in the urban landscape for Los Angeles' long-term sustainability.

Andy Lipkis founded TreePeople at age 18 in 1973, and remains its President today. With thousands of members and volunteers and more than 50 staff members, TreePeople operates out of the Center for Community Forestry at 45-acre Coldwater Canyon Park.

History

Andy Lipkis - Founder/President of TreePeople since 1973

TreePeople was founded in Los Angeles in 1973 by then 18-year-old activist Andy Lipkis. Lipkis and a group of other teenagers began planting trees three years prior at summer camp in the San Bernardino Mountains. Lipkis heard that smog from Los Angeles was drifting up to the mountains and killing the forest. He rallied his fellow campers, tore up a parking lot, planted smog-tolerant trees ... and TreePeople was born.

Since then, TreePeople staff have gone on to plant more than two million trees in the Los Angeles area and have developed one of the nation’s largest environmental education programs. A recent program is T.R.E.E.S. – Transagency Resources for Environmental and Economic Sustainability - demonstrating the feasibility and facilitates the implementation of integrated urban ecosystem management to increase the health and sustainability of our cities.

Accomplishments

External links

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