Tree Care Workshop - Wrapup

Last week 13 participants from RC&D, CUC, DPW, Parks & Recreation, CNMI Forestry, and members of the Legislature took part in a Tree Care Workshop coordinated by Beautify CNMI! and Marianas Resource Conservation & Development Council.

The idea for a tree care workshop was initiated by Captain Carl Brachear during a Restoration Committee meeting. He noticed that some of our government partners could be doing a better job when it came to trimming trees along our roads and under our power lines. We've been working on a plan for this workshop for months, but it wasn't until MVA donated some seed money that we could get the ball rolling.

For two days the participants learned about tree care, tree biology, tree maintenance, and how to plant and trim trees. On each day there was a classroom session in the morning, followed by an amazing lunch at Aoi Restaurant at the Grand Hotel, with more classroom after lunch, followed by work out in the field in the afternoon. On the first day we planted Flame Trees along Beach Road and on the second day we trimmed mango trees in Kagman.

A big thank you to Captain Carl Brachear for providing the idea to have this workshop, MVA for providing the seed money to get this workshop rolling (this paid for airfare from Guam and some of our workshop supplies), Grand Hotel for providing Hotel and meeting space for our trainers from Guam, Ken Kramer for coordinating the whole thing, Roland and Ilene for coming over from Guam, and other Beautify CNMI! donors and participants for making this successful workshop possible.

The agencies came out of the workshop with a better understanding of tree care and maintenance and a willingness to work together to make the CNMI a better place to live and visit. The Restoration Committee is going to gather the participants together in the next few weeks so that we can come together on a plan of action. Although we haven't decided what project we want to work on, we have already talked about replacing the Flame Trees on Beach Road and other places on island, removing the trees from under the power lines that shouldn't be there, and/or lining some of our other streets with other species of trees.