May 16, 2023
Friends of the Urban
Forest exists on the premise that there are "no trees
in San Francisco." That of course isn't the literal truth. But
we'll get to that.
In Part 1 of our episode
on FUF, we sit down
with Tree Planting Program
Manager Zeima Kassahun and
Executive Director Brian
Wiedenmeier to chat about the non-profit's 42-year
history of making San Francisco greener. We learn a little about
Zeima and Brian's lives, where they're from, how they ended up
moving to The City, and what brought them to FUF.
Then Brian and Zeima talk about the
history of Friends of the Urban Forest. This conversation includes
the fact that, upon colonization of San Francisco, there were very
few trees, most of which were located in and around the
no-longer-existent Mission Bay. We work our way up through
industrialization, urbanization, and the advent of car culture to
set the stage for what a group of neighbors and friends were up
against when they founded FUF in 1981.
Please join us for Part 2 next week,
when we'll dive deeper into San Francisco's need for more canopy
cover and what Friends of the Urban Forest, with its 40-ish
staffers and hundreds of volunteers, is doing to bring that
about.
We recorded this podcast in April
2023 at the FUF office in the
Presidio.
Photography by Jeff Hunt