About Us

It began in 1987 when a city contracted tree-cutting crew wanted to remove two 75-year-old ash trees from in front of Pepper Provenzano's home. Six trees had been removed from the adjacent block a day earlier, cut from the ground level, chopped up and hauled away.

Pepper called the City Forester and won a temporary reprieve which later turned permanent but not before he learned that most of Salt Lake City's trees were in declining condition and the City Forester had only a five-man crew to handle 46,500 street trees. He also learned that about 800 trees must be removed from public areas each year while only 400 can be planted due to limited funds.

Pepper recognized a need for creating an organization dedicated to urban forestry and the stewardship of trees. TreeUtah was established on Arbor Day in April of 1989 through a proclamation by then Salt Lake City mayor Palmer DePaulis. Pepper Provenzano remains the Founding President of TreeUtah.

Our Programs

Urban & Community Forestry: This program aims to build public awareness and understanding of the needs and values of healthy community forests and to facilitate community-based tree planting projects throughout the State of Utah. We have two ways in which we do this; MetroGreening and YounGrowth. Our MetroGreening project focuses on building partnerships among local community members, government programs and private enterprises to help ensure the long-term health of our community forests. We conduct tree care workshops and community tree plantings throughout the state of Utah. YounGrowth's goal is to educate young people about the environmental, economic, and energy-saving benefits of trees.

Permaculture & Ecological Demonstration Garden: The Food Forest Ecological Demonstration Garden was created in 2006 in partnership with the Salt Lake City Parks Department and the Day-Riverside Library. The Eco-Garden was developed to facilitate education and skillbuilding within the community around the topic of urban sustainability. Community Members come together in creativity and productivity while learning ecological design concepts, water harvesting and organic gardening techniques as well as natural building skills.

Ecological Restoration: In cooperation with several partners, TreeUtah is responsible for the restoration and management of 119 acres of Jordan River floodplain. The purpose of the project is to restore and preserve migratory bird habitat along the Jordan River corridor. The restoration plan is designed to improve habitat for a broad variety of bird species through manipulation of site hydrology, control of exotic vegetation, and re-establishment of native trees and shrubs. Since November 1998, we have planted over 60,000 native seedlings on approximately 90 acres of the site. This has been made possible with the help of over 5000 volunteers that have dedicated over 50,000 hours of their time to this future woodland.