MARYVILLE, Mo. – For the sixth consecutive year, Arbor Day Foundation has named Northwest Missouri State University a Tree Campus USA for its commitment to effective urban forest management.
Tree Campus USA is a national program created in 2008 by the Arbor Day Foundation to honor colleges and universities for promoting healthy trees and engaging students and staff in conservation goals.
According to a press release from Northwest, the university achieved the title by meeting Tree Campus USA’s five core standards for effective campus forest management. Those standards include maintaining a tree advisory committee, a campus tree-care plan, dedicated annual expenditures for its campus tree program, an Arbor Day observance and student service-learning projects.
“It’s an honor to be designated a Tree Campus USA,” Pat Ward, the director of the Missouri Arboretum at Northwest, said. ”The importance of trees to the environment is becoming more and more evident as we have problems with air quality and high concentrations of carbon dioxide, which the trees sequester. We’ve got so many trees on campus, we are probably a carbon dioxide sink; we take in more carbon dioxide than we put out, which is good.”
The campus is home to more than 1,700 trees and more than 160 species cultivated from throughout the world.
According to Northwest, this spring, with the assistance of a Tree Resource Improvement and Maintenance (TRIM) grant award of $23,860 from the Missouri Department of Conservation, actions were taken to improve the health and sustainability of the Missouri Arboretum while improving pedestrian safety.
Arborists removed two Ginkgo trees and three Cottonwood trees deemed hazardous, and they pruned 12 Oak trees and eight Crab Apple trees as part the University’s three-year pruning rotation. Northwest also took steps to preserve its 50-foot Northern Catalpa, a legacy tree on the campus, by adding limb support and lighting protection to the tree. Additionally, Northwest is enhancing the grounds near the Dean L. Hubbard Center for Innovation with new trees, pollinator plants and prairies grasses.