FoT Volunteer Erika Johnson Wins Urban Forestry Award

By Ian Bonham

Erika Johnson has gone the distance as a Friends of Trees volunteer. “I have many fond memories of running across McGillivray Boulevard with sloshing five-gallon buckets to water the trees we’d planted in the city medians,” Erika Johnson recalled during the event on Saturday morning.

Erika was named Vancouver’s “Tree Steward” last Saturday, receiving the Silva Bolds-Whitfield Urban Forestry Award for going to extraordinary lengths to inspire and enrich the quality of life in Vancouver through the protection and restoration of Vancouver’s Urban Forest.

As a Friends of Trees Neighborhood Coordinator and Crew Leader for over 12 years, Erika has helped plant hundreds of trees in her own neighborhood, and many more across the City of Vancouver. Always keeping an eye out for treeless street medians and empty parking strips, Erika is well known in her neighborhood for going door-to-door to encourage her neighbors to plant and care for trees. After attending her first FOT planting in 1998, Erika wanted to see an event like that in her own Vancouver neighborhood. But at that time, Friends of Trees only planted in Portland. This wasn’t enough for Erika, who worked with FOT and Vancouver Urban Forestry to expand FOT’s great work north of the Columbia River. This became the first Vancouver Neighborhood Trees planting in 2002.

Brighton West, Friends of Trees’ Deputy Director was on hand Sunday to help recognize Erika’s contributions to FOT and Vancouver’s neighborhoods, as well as the unveiling of her name etched on to the Urban Forestry monument downtown.  “If you know a tree planter, you’ve undoubtedly heard them say ‘I planted that!'” West said.

“That’s because the real monuments to Erika’s years of hard work are the hundreds of trees she’s planted all around Vancouver.”

— Ian is the Neighborhood Trees Coordinator for both Vancouver Urban Forestry and Friends of Trees.