PUEBLO, Colo. – On April 2, foresters from around the state took an inventory of the more than 900 trees in Pueblo’s Mineral Palace Park, all at no cost to the city. The inventory was conducted by the Colorado State Forest Service as a community service project, and accomplished by almost 50 foresters in town for the agency’s annual meeting and awards ceremony.
Mineral Palace Park, off North Santa Fe Drive, offers 57 acres with public access to Lake Clara and an arboretum, gazebos, picnic areas, and a playground and pool.
“Public tree inventories are valuable to city foresters and the surrounding community,” said John Grieve, district forester for the CSFS Cañon City District and project lead. “They provide a basis for sound management and annual work activities such as pruning, tree removal and new planting needs. They also identify potential exposure or risk for insect and disease problems.”
Using GPS units, CSFS foresters gathered information including each tree’s species, size, location and general condition. The City of Pueblo Parks and Recreation Department provided the CSFS the proper format for data collection, so that all new information could be easily incorporated into an existing database.
The inventory will become an integral part of long-range planning to sustain the park’s urban forest. The project also provided CSFS staff with necessary training and field experience with their relatively new Trimble GPS units.
“A good inventory is an essential component of an urban forestry management plan,” said Mike Taft, urban forestry program coordinator with Pueblo Parks and Recreation. “Inventories can also be very time-consuming. This project will be a great help for us.”