TreePeople Celebrates its 40th Anniversary.                                       

TreePeople launches a research project in partnership with communities in southern California and Australia aimed at sharing best practices in urban rainwater capture and water conservation practices. In 2012, TreePeople takes a research trip to Australia as part of an information and best practices exchange program between government, research and community organizations in Australia and Southern California, aimed at sharing innovations, best practices in urban rainwater capture and water conservation practices. A particular focus is on identifying successes, challenges and lessons learned from Australia’s “Millennium Drought” as a way to help prepare Southern California to develop and implement a sustainable approach to meeting its water needs.

TreePeople plants its 2 millionth tree.                                       

TreePeople completes a six-year watershed project in Sun Valley. Starting in 2004, TreePeople worked closely with the County of Los Angeles to create the Sun Valley Watershed Management Plan, formally approved by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in July 2004. The plan is a large-scale project that supports alternative watershed management practices in a flood-ridden, 2,700 acre area of the Northeast San Fernando Valley.

TreePeople, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, launches Forest Aid to plant 35,000 seedlings and help restore the San Bernardino National Forest. Forest Aid was created in response to the 2007 and 2003 tragic wildfires where 185,000 acres burned in the San Bernardino National Forest. TreePeople, as part of a partnership led by The Council for Watershed Health who brought together local agencies and funding partners, completes the Elmer Avenue Neighborhood Retrofit that transformed a residential street into a model “green street” incorporating stormwater best management practices that capture and filter runoff from a 40-acre area, and help to reduce extreme flooding in the area.

TreePeople celebrates the opening of the newly designed educational campus at Coldwater Canyon Park – including the La Kretz Urban Watershed Demonstration Garden, The S. Mark Taper Foundation Environmental Learning Center, W. M. Keck Foundation Nursery, and Parking Grove.

TreePeople commits to helping the City of Los Angeles plant 300,000 trees in parklands to support Mayor Villaraigosa’s Million Trees LA Initiative. This work includes restoring fire-damaged Griffith Park.

TreePeople completes construction on one of Los Angeles’ most sustainable buildings—the TreePeople Conference Center—a platinum-rated LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building and includes a 216,000-gallon cistern. The cistern is an underground holding tank that captures rainwater from the building’s roof and filters runoff from the parking lot to supply TreePeople with water to irrigate the native gardens and trees.

TreePeople is among only 15 agencies worldwide to be honored by the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Committee, receiving the Spirit of the Land Environmental Education Award for their Schoolyard Explorers curriculum.                          

Second Nature, a guide to adapting LA’s Landscape for sustainable living, is published by TreePeople.                          

TreePeople is part of the LADWP’s Cool Schools Program to green campuses throughout the City of Los Angeles. As part of the program, TreePeople retrofits Broadus Elementary School with a stormwater management system including an underground infiltration field that redirects stormwater from surrounding streets to help reduce flooding and recharge the aquifer; and Open Charter Elementary School that receives an underground cistern designed to take stormwater that used to run off the campus and capture and use it to irrigate the landscape.

TreePeople retrofits a project house to showcase resilient, water saving design – including a 3,600-gallon cistern, a water pump and a dry well. It is bombarded with 4,000 gallons of water in a mock rainstorm at a media event.