On February 22, TreePeople’s Founder and President Andy Lipkis recorded a webinar on California’s current drought. TreePeople is on the front lines working with government agencies and utilities to produce a coordinated response to rapidly, smartly, and effectively solve the region’s short and long term water crises. We want you to get the inside story…
Andy Lipkis
Andy Lipkis is a practical visionary who has dedicated his life to healing the environment while improving the lives of individuals and communities. He founded TreePeople in Los Angeles in 1973 at age 18 and continues to serve as its President. Andy has spearheaded an approach using trees and forest-inspired technologies to make cities sustainable while mitigating floods, drought, pollution, and climate change. Called “Functioning Community Forests,” it is being demonstrated in L.A. as a model for cities everywhere.
Trees save our very lives. Literally.
January 16, 2014This fact inspired me to write an article for The Jewish Journal in honor of Tu b’Shevat, the Jewish New Year or Birthday of the Trees. For decades, students at Jewish schools and schools throughout Los Angeles County have planted seedlings with TreePeople to celebrate this holiday. But these days, tree planting has become much…
Not Enough Water, L.A.? Look Up.
November 4, 2013I am excited to announce that today’s edition of the Los Angeles Times carries a timely Op-Ed that I wrote titled, “Not enough water, L.A.? Look up.” Did Mulholland Get it Wrong? Nearly one hundred years ago today, William Mulholland stood before a crowd of 40,000 near San Fernando and unfurled an American flag, signaling…
Forbes Features TreePeople’s Water Work
October 10, 2013Our “sound bite” name of TreePeople is misleading. What we do goes way beyond trees. A recent article in Forbes describes the deeper side of our work, which is about building Los Angeles’ next water supply. Trees are inextricably linked to water—capturing, cleansing and storing rainwater and protecting us from drought and floods. As such, they…
Plug-In to the Los Angeles Business Council Summit
October 2, 2013With TreePeople’s mission to inspire and engage people in making Los Angeles sustainable and healthy, we can’t ignore the role that our transportation system plays with its massive consumption of energy, and generation of CO2 and air pollution. Our streets, roads and highways are the primary mechanism whereby we pollute and throw away over $400…
The Tree-Water Connection at One Water Leadership Summit, September 23 – 26
September 13, 2013Even though our name is TreePeople, our organization is as focused on the city’s watershed as we are on its individual trees. After all, the forest has always been nature’s water supply and pollution clean-up system. I’ll be shedding light on how that works in Los Angeles—and the many benefits to our environment, community and…
Election Day: A Watershed Moment?
May 21, 2013On this day when the people of Los Angeles will choose the next mayor, a leader who will be called on to prepare our city for the severe weather that is forecast for our future, including droughts and floods, it is heartening for me to reflect on what we learned from our Dutch colleagues during…
TreePeople Turns 40: Thank You, Los Angeles!
April 23, 2013Today marks 40 years since the Los Angeles Times shared a kid’s dream of saving our city and our forests. “Andy vs. the Bureaucratic Deadwood,” by Michael Seiler, touched many thousands of people–especially other kids and grandparents–and moved them to send in their pennies to nurture that dream. Following the publication of the article, the kid’s…
Vote for an Empowered Future
April 14, 2013From our beginnings, TreePeople has been about a different paradigm. Instead of bemoaning the state of the environment, we inspire, engage, and support people to take personal responsibility to heal the ecosystem. So it’s encouraging to see that 267 projects have come forward with ideas to fix LA in response to what is perhaps the…
A Living Memorial and a Model for Community Engagement
January 18, 2013On January 15, 1990, three thousand people came out to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by planting 400 trees along the entire length of MLK Boulevard in South Los Angeles–seven miles in a single day. At this event, organized by TreePeople, each tree was named in memory of someone, and then adopted by a neighboring…