The Houston Region now has a story to tell about its Quality of Place, and it is using the expertise of local resident, Paul Wierzbicki, to tell that story. Missouri City’s first City Forester, Wierzbicki will be part of The Center for Houston’s Future Panel on Trees, at the January 20th Counting on Quality of Place Symposium (1001 Ave. de Las Americas, Houston, 8:00a.m-1:30p.m.) The event will be the platform at which the Center’s Indicator Study, representing 10 years of data on Air Quality, Parks & Trails, and Trees, will be released.

Paul’s knowledge as part of the Missouri City Parks and Recreation Team, and as an urban forestry professional, will help those in attendance at the Symposium to better grasp the data gathered, and guide us as to the steps that need to be taken to protect our region’s trees.

Other panelists at this important Symposium include experts in Air quality, Parks and Trails, and Trees, as well as public health experts who will discuss the implications of these Indicators on the well-being of the region’s residents and Quality of Place.

Below are some of the findings of the Center’s report:

• Air Quality is a mixed bag - our current compliance with EPA ozone standards hangs by a thin thread. With the recently announced, more stringent EPA regulations, our hard-won standing might slip before we have time to celebrate.

• When we look at Parks & Trails, the news is not much better. Virtually no new land has been allocated recently to park systems, yet a number of innovative partnerships and projects have been created to improve the quality of our parks and to expand their use. They will be seen, not just as a space to play, but as an alternative means of getting to places like school and church.

• The statistics are alarming for Trees. The region has lost 679 square miles of tree canopy since 1992 – an amount equal to the size of the City of Houston. To be fair, tree planting efforts have steadily increased in the last ten years, but they fall short of replacing the hundreds of square miles of tree canopy being lost to residential and commercial development each year.

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