[PCA] When You Give a Tree an Email Address

[De Angelis, Patricia]

   - ADRIENNE LAFRANCE
   - Jul 10, 2015
   -
      - From The Atlantic CITYLAB

The city of Melbourne assigned trees email addresses so citizens could
report problems. Instead, people wrote thousands of love letters to their
favorite trees.

"My dearest Ulmus," the message began.

“As I was leaving St. Mary’s College today I was struck, not by a branch,
but by your radiant beauty. You must get these messages all the time.
You’re such an attractive tree.”

This is an excerpt of a letter someone wrote to a green-leaf elm, one of
thousands of messages in an ongoing correspondence between the people of
Melbourne, Australia, and the city’s trees.

Officials assigned the trees ID numbers and email addresses in 2013 as part
ofa program designed to make it easier for citizens to report problems like
dangerous branches. The “unintended but positive consequence,” as the chair
of Melbourne’s Environment Portfolio, Councillor Arron Wood, put it to me
in an email, was that people did more than just report issues. They also
wrote directly to the trees, which have received thousands of
messages—everything from banal greetings and questions about current events
to love letters and existential dilemmas.

Full story:
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/07/when-you-give-a-tree-an-email-address/398219/
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