An app logging over 700,000 of London's trees is encouraging citizens to embrace urban nature during the coronavirus lockdown, by discovering and identifying trees in their local area during their daily walk.
TreeTalk, designed by Revolution Consultancy & Design, uses cleaned data from the GLA, who have merged data from London boroughs with Transport for London, who plant and manage trees along London's busiest main roads.
The most common trees in TreeTalk's dataset are London Planes (Platanus x hispanica), Cherry (Prunus), Lime (Tilia), Ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and Sycamore trees (Acer pseudoplatanus).
Director Rob Tustain told the Standard: "It's about people being able to re-connect with the local urban nature, and encouraging ‘active travel’ in a fun, interesting way"
Most recently, for last week's Urban Tree Festival, TreeTalk produced a London #DailyWalk Generator - and has seen tens of thousands of routes generated within the last month.
Simply enter any London address, and a walk will be automatically generated for you, with information about the trees you'll spot along the way. You can also access several pre-made trails on their website, such as The Haggerston Hop or Chiswick Chase.
Mr Tustain explained: "We think appreciation of nature in cities has intensified because of lockdown – people have had more time to notice the environment, including the trees, around them.
"Trees especially help to reduce CO2, moderate extreme temperatures, soak up pollutants and mitigate the worst effects of flooding."
The app has been refined since its launch in 2017, and now functions with data from all London boroughs apart from Hackney, Brent and Croydon.
Mr Tustain said: "We’ve been developing our routing engine over the past 3 years and are continually refining it. That means that other aspects, e.g. air quality, tree canopy and green routes can be layered to give the best active travel experience for the user.
"We've also been able to apply this across other projects such as GoParksLondon, where we have created a website with over 4,000 green spaces for Londoners, through to London Car Free Day; allowing us to incorporate event functionality to our routing offering."
One TreeTalk user commented: "This is one of the best things I’ve found in lockdown. Every tree (almost) in London has been mapped. Put in your address and it gives you a personalised tree walk so you can learn as you go."
Another said: "This is an excellent find. Much more fun than Pokemon Go!"
TreeTalk has also proven popular in other areas of the UK, and its creators hope it will be part of a broader transition towards a greener future.
Mr Tustain said: "We’d love to be able to grow TreeTalk nationally and in turn, help to make a difference in people’s lives.
"What is exciting for us are the Mayor of London’s Streetspace plans aiming to place clean, green and sustainable travel at the heart of London’s recovery from Covid-19.
"And also, the Climate Emergency plans, where many areas are aiming to be carbon neutral by 2030, whilst dramatically expanding their tree planting, and co-design and co-creation with their residents and engagement."