The Community Image Advisory Board and Florida International University hosted the 7th Annual Tree Summit on March 27, 2013. The event was held in the Management and Advanced Research Center (MARC) Pavilion at FIU’s Modesto Maidique Campus. The Summit attracted over 150 participants from an array of organizations, local elected officials, government agencies, industry professionals, and partners in the community, landscape nurseries, not-for-profit organizations and municipalities.
Over 100,000 trees have been planted in Miami Dade County since the inception of the Million Trees Miami campaign. The Tree Summit kicked off the campaign bringing together stakeholders with the common goal of increasing Miami-Dade County’s tree canopy coverage to 30% by the year 2020. To learn more about Million Trees Miami, click here.
FIU was the 1st Tree Campus certified in the state, and is dedicated to community building, restoring the environment and promoting the importance of a healthy sustainable urban forest. Participants in the Seventh Annual Tree Summit were invited to tour FIU’s very own Nature Preserve on campus after listening to the keynote by Larry Perez, Everglades Ranger and Author of Snake in the Grass: An Everglades Invasion.
Attendees of the 7th Annual Miami Tree Summit were invited to take part in Xavier Cortada’s FLOR500 Tiled Drawing. Participants were given a tile to take home in exchange for promising to plant a garden with the seed packet accompanying each tile. Guests were instructed that each garden is to be dedicated to someone meaningful in their lives. The FLOR500 Tiled Drawing is a way to engage the community by transforming 100 tiles into 100 neighborhood gardens using native Florida wildflower seeds. The initiative would thus not only honor someone special in their lives but also encourage participants to make a difference in preserving Florida’s environment. An interactive video was also shown during Cortada’s presentation, showing the making of the tiled drawing.
FLOR500 Painting Tree Summit 2013 Video
To see pictures of the event click here
