City of Fernandina Beach
PRESS RELEASE
Submitted by Kelly N. Gibson
The City of Fernandina Beach has received its 12th consecutive year of national recognition as a Tree City USA community by the Arbor Day Foundation. This represents the City’s continued commitment honoring community forestry.
On Sunday, April 27, 2014 the City will celebrate Arbor Day by hosting a ceremonial tree planting event at 1pm at the Amelia River Waterfront Park Petanque Courts. The tree planting ceremony has been planned in coordination with the Petanque America group and the Amelia Tree Conservancy. Event festivities include a pot-luck lunch, live music, petanque games, and a Treasured Tree Trolley Tour. The Treasured Tree Trolley Tour quickly sold out its tickets within just a few days. Members of the Amelia Tree Conservancy hope to offer this type of tour again at a later date.
Trees for this year’s Arbor Day have been donated by a local landscape company, NuVision, and include one live oak and five palm trees. These trees will be placed at the Waterfront to frame the northern edge of the existing petanque courts. The City invites members of the public to come participate in this fun Sunday afternoon event.
Arbor Day was founded by J. Sterling Morton in 1872 as a tree planting holiday in Nebraska. It is generally observed on the last Friday in April. For more information about Arbor Day you can go to the Arbor Day Foundation’s website at www.arborday.org or contact them at 1-888-448-7337.
For more information, visit www.fbfl.us or contact Kelly N. Gibson, Senior Planner.
April 14, 2014 10:15 a.m.
For me, it is hard to get excited about planting trees when the oldest magnolia tree on Amelia Island is to be removed for St. Michael’s parking expansion. The Church owns the gorgeous former Lotspeich House and it should preserve the beauty of the property, as well.
Dene Stovall (Granddaughter of the late Paul and Melva Lotspeich)
While I regard myself as a strong tree preservationist and have worked hard in the past with the City staff on strengthening the tree ordinance and other issues, I can only shake my head a little bit when people bemoan the fact that a tree gets removed when further development occurs. I bet for the vast majority of people that live in the City, when the house they live in was built there were trees removed to make way for that construction. Trees shouldn’t be removed unless it is necessary but it is also important to have an ongoing tree planting program to ensure a good distribution of both species and age.
Development on our island will necessitate tree loss to some degree in many situations. But cutting down a tree of significance in a neighborhood so a parking lot can be expanded for an organization that intends to relocate to a new off-island location in the future can certainly lead one to wonder. Ameliatreeconservancy.org is a participant in the city’s Arbor Day celebration this year. Part of our mission is to bring awareness to residents of the significant loss of trees that development is causing and to ask the question is this the legacy we want to leave to our children and future generations. It took hundreds of years to grow the majestic trees that many of us take for granted, and replacing them with new saplings of the same variety, or mature palm trees in many situations, does damage to our ecosystem and the marine canopy that protects us from high winds and erosion. So in response to Mr. Lott’s comment, I would say that I agree that a tree planting program would be helpful, if only we had one that actually kept up with the loss of trees that is occurring, and also ask the question, “If to bemoan the loss of one tree to development seems frivolous, at what point do we add up all the individual trees lost over time and then wonder, where did all the old growth trees go?” We would invite interested citizens to join us in our mission to educate the public and to preserve, protect, and plant new trees for our future on Amelia Island.