Ambitious project aims to map and measure trees in Coconut Grove in hopes of changing policies

FIU researcher Chris Baraloto measuring the height of a gumbo limbo tree in The Barnacle State Park.

This story originally appeared on WLRN June 24, 2019

By Daniel Rivero

FIU researcher Chris Baraloto measuring the height of a gumbo limbo tree in The Barnacle State Park.

The massive oak trees don’t just surround Katrina Morris’ home in Coconut Grove. They engulf it with branches hovering high above the roof, where a peacock roosts and makes incessant calls to would-be mates.

“I think our trees are over 100 years old,” says Morris, sitting in her backyard. “Because they grow over the top of our house and we don’t cut them away from our house, our energy bills are a lot less than a lot of other people.”

Yet Morris looks around her neighborhood and she feels uneasy. In recent years, developers have built massive houses on her block, cutting down trees in the process. She’s confused about why the city allows developers to cut the trees.

“We’re sitting in almost June in my backyard and it’s pleasant,” she argues. “Go outside the Grove and it’s not gonna be so pleasant, because you don’t have the canopy.”

A new research project from Florida International University could help bring some clarity to those decisions. The project, called Grove ReLeaf, has the ambitious goal of mapping every tree in the neighborhood and calculating what it calls the “services” provided by each of those trees. This includes things like the money saved by a tree’s cooling effects, root systems that combat flooding and sea-level rise, along with potentially negative factors for certain species — messy fruits, root systems that threaten infrastructure, and the fact that some non-native trees can take over native habitats.

Ultimately, the data is meant to help city leaders incorporate data into tree policy for the City of Miami.

The project is headed by Chris Baraloto, a researcher at FIU and a veteran of tree studies. Before moving to the Grove he lived in French Guiana for over a decade, studying trees in the Amazon rainforest. Now he is using some of the research techniques in an urban setting to launch the research project. WLRN joined him as he started with a large live oak tree hanging over the sidewalk of Main Highway, near The Barnacle State Park.

Continue reading on WLRN.


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3 COMMENTS

  1. I always loved seeing the mature trees in Coconut Grove. I was sorry when they took out the huge ficus trees along US 1 near the Grove. Downtown Grove seems hotter when you are on foot.

  2. Shade is wonderful and my girlfriend lives in what is close to an actual rainforest as you can get in the Grove. The problem is Irma left us with two piles of branches that were almost 20 ft long and 6 ft tall. I just hope that this doesn’t lead to more government regulation that will endanger people’s property. Big trees do tip over, there was a Banyan Tree with a 20 ft base that tipped over and took out the roof of a house in the Gables during Irma

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