Tree Pittsburgh exchanges ideas with colleagues from Russia

Tree Pitts­burgh part­nered with Obvin­skaya Roza to sub­mit a grant appli­ca­tion through the U.S.-Russia Peer to Peer Dia­logue Pro­gram. Tree Pitts­burgh’s appli­ca­tion was one of 30 select­ed from a pool of over 320 appli­cants. The pro­gram began with an exchange of urban forestry experts between Perm, Rus­sia and Pitts­burgh. Both cities share an indus­tri­al past and are well-forest­ed. While Perm is work­ing to pre­serve its native ecol­o­gy, Pitts­burgh is work­ing hard to restore its ecology.

In Sep­tem­ber of 2014, Danielle Crum­rine and Matt Erb of Tree Pitts­burgh along with Joseph Gre­go­ry of Dav­ey Resource Group trav­eled to Perm. The week was full of meet­ings and pre­sen­ta­tions. Pitts­burgh rep­re­sen­ta­tives  shared lots of infor­ma­tion, includ­ing how Tree Pitts­burgh works with vol­un­teers, to the Pitts­burgh Urban For­est Mas­ter Plan and its i‑Tree com­po­nents. Also includ­ed in the trip were vis­its to local nurs­eries, tours of cul­tur­al his­to­ry muse­ums and a vis­it to the home­stead of Alexan­dr Teploukov, an inge­nious forester who plant­ed trees through­out the area over 150 years ago.

In Octo­ber of 2014, a group of 6 experts from Perm vis­it­ed Pitts­burgh: Ele­na Pleshko­va of Obvin­skaya Roza, Iliusa Zbrue­va and Andrei Zelenin of the City of Perm, Svet­lana Kulako­va of Perm State Uni­ver­si­ty, Alek­san­dr Romanov of Perm Agri­cul­tur­al Acad­e­my and Alek­sie Sha­posh­nikov of MyTer­ri­to­ry. The group shared ideas on pre­serv­ing green space from devel­op­ment, how to inte­grate i‑Tree into online pro­gram­ing for a larg­er audi­ence and more. They also toured city, state and coun­ty parks and vis­it­ed his­toric sites in West­ern PA.

Dis­cus­sions between Perm and Pitts­burgh will con­tin­ue over the next year via video conferencing.