Diminishing tree canopy is global issue. As you read this, you might recall the adage: “Think globally, Act locally.” By applying a remarkable new tool (a link to an interactive map) shared in this post, you can do just that. It enables you to find out what your tree canopy is, no matter where you live in the U.S., as well as your tree equity score (explained below). Below, I describe the use of this tool and findings for my neighborhood in Seattle. Note that the tree protection action steps outlined also apply more broadly than just the Seattle. Please do try this at home and enourage your neighbors, local businesses, government and nonprofits to preserve mature trees and plant new ones!
How is Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood faring with respect to tree canopy/equity?
Following Seattle City Council’s 2023 passage of a weak tree ordinance, a city-wide loss of 255 acres of trees from 2016-2021, and a pending comprehensive plan that favors trees in the horizontal position, I wondered how are we doing with respect to tree equity here in Ravenna?
The short answer is better than most of our city, but much more needs to be done city-wide. According to a new tree equity tool, the Ravenna/Cowen Historic District has achieved a 30% tree canopy (equal to the city’s goal) and a 94-tree equity score.
What does the tree equity score mean? According to the Tree Equity website, “Trees are critical urban infrastructure that are essential to public health and well-being. Tree equity score was created to help address damaging environmental equities by prioritizing human-centered investment in areas with the greatest need. In Seattle, scores range from the 90’s in leafy neighborhoods like Ravenna and Montlake to the 60’s in places like the SODO district and South Park, to a low of 57 in the tree-scarce Chinatown International District.
This information comes courtesy of conservation nonprofit American Forests and the Washington Department of Natural Resources. Together, they created this informative tree equity tool/map that you can access to find tree equity scores locally, citywide and across the U.S.: treeequityscore.org
As Seattle Times reporter Ava Mandali wrote: “A fuller tree canopy comes with a host of benefits: it makes an area cooler, cleans the air, reduces storm-water runoff and makes streets safer for people with higher health risks like seniors and children.” Will Rubin from Washington DNR added: “They’re (trees) not just decorative umbrellas, they’re core, critical pieces of modern infrastructure.”
The cost of living in low tree canopy or urban heat islands can be severe. According to the University of Washington Climate Impacts group “about 400 people died from direct and indirect heat related causes during the 2021 heat dome in the Pacific Northwest.”
This behooves us to protect and steward our tree canopy and to advocate for stronger tree protections. In July 2025, Representatives Marilyn Strickland (D-WA) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the Cool Corridors Act – a bill that reauthorizes and expands the Healthy Streets Program to fund tree canopy and shade infrastructure along sidewalks, transit corridors and other high-use pedestrian areas.
By supporting this bill on the national level along with upgrading Seattle’s draft comprehensive plan, we can all improve tree equity. Friends of Ravenna Cowen board member Lani Johnson added: “Supporting tree planting & maintenance is important in all communities, even those that might meet the 30% [minimum] goal—a goal that we want for all neighborhoods. Increasing canopy in under-treed neighborhoods is an essential & immediate objective.”
The City of Seattle lost 255 acres of tree canopy between 2020 and 2025 — roughly equivalent in size to a popular lake called Green Lake (trees superimposed to demonstrate the magnitude of tree loss in Seattle).
