The Chicago Park District also received nearly $1.5 million to conduct an inventory. Morton Arboretum's Chicago Region Trees Initiative is administering the grants on behalf of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

CRTI connects organizations — public and private — across the seven-county Chicago area to promote the importance of trees and improve the quality of the region's tree canopy.

The six recommended appointees to the board, which was created in June 2021, all received unanimous support during a key committee hearing. Next up is a full Chicago City Council vote.

Chicago is set to invest $46 million in tree planting over the next five years. Trees can help improve air quality, reduce flooding, and offer several other health and social benefits. But the distribution of trees throughout Chicago is far from equal.

Between 2010 and 2020, Chicago’s canopy cover decreased from 19% to 16%, largely due to the loss of mature ash trees, according to the 2020 tree census spearheaded by the Morton Arboretum. 

Oak was once the predominant tree in the Chicago area. Now most of them are gone. Ecologists have a plan to make sure they don’t disappear from the region entirely, and they need our help.

Oak trees, once abundant in the Chicago region, have been struggling to reproduce in recent decades. A grant from the U.S. Forest Service will help fund a restoration project at Greene Valley in Naperville.

The 2020 census of the region’s trees — the largest undertaking of its kind in the country — will build on the inaugural 2010 count and help municipalities set priorities for creating healthier green infrastructure, particularly in underserved communities.

The city has given up on its ash trees, but some Chicagoans refuse to let theirs die.