Amos White, founder of 100K Trees For Humanity, stands in Washington Park, on Monday, June 5, 2023, in Alameda, CA. This park used to be full of coast live oaks, once a vital keystone species to the ecosystem, but only a few remain. “We're missing 6000 trees in Alameda,” said Amos White. “Alameda was the nation’s largest coast live oak forest, until the late 1880’s, when they became furniture, ships, shovel handles and boats.”

Alameda, California was once a densely forested wetland, and home to an abundance of birds and marine life, as well as the Ohlone Native Americans, before it was colonized, separated from Oakland by a shipping channel, and developed into a naval base. The island is now a suburb full of Victorians, parks and beaches on the east side, and affordable housing, warehouses and abandoned naval buildings on the west side– home to the island’s densest population of people of color, the least tree coverage and highest exposure to air pollution from Oakland’s nearby highway system and ports.

100 K Trees For Humanity is an Alameda-based nonprofit, founded by Amos White, who plans to facilitate the planting of 100,000 new trees in every city in the bay area by 2030, to meet the United Nation’s carbon emission reduction goals, and to equitably invest in the public, social and environmental health of communities with low tree coverage. “It's really impressive what trees do to clean our air, to filter our air of toxins and volatile organic compounds, and diesel emissions off of the ports,” said White.

Amos White shakes the hand of Eric Montez, of Alameda Parks and Recreation, before a public tree planting at Leydecker Park, on Saturday, June 3, 2023 in Alameda, CA. “We don't plant trees,” said White. “We organize communities to plant trees.”

Amos White tucks soil into the base of an oak sapling at REAP Climate Center, among young trees planted by students from the island, on Monday, June 5, 2023, in Alameda, CA.

Volunteers plant a sapling during the Pat Potter Memorial Tree Planting at Leydecker Park, on Saturday, June 3, 2023, in Alameda, CA.

Great egrets nest in a Monterey pine stand along Bay Farm Island Lagoon, on Saturday, June 3, 2023, in Alameda, CA. Before being colonized and deforested, Alameda was home to Ohlone people, and was a critical and biodiverse wetland ecosystem, for birds and marine life.

Malaysia (left) and Makayla Gilbert, play outside of their home in west Alameda, on Sunday, June 4, 2023. The west end of Alameda is where the densest concentration of people of color live, and has significantly less tree coverage than the east side does.

A group of anglers wait for fish to bite, across the Oakland Estuary from the 9th busiest container port in the United States on Monday, June 5, 2023, in Alameda, CA. Between the ships, trucks and cranes operating in the Oakland Ports, and its surrounding highways, Oakland has some of the highest rates of respiratory disease in the Bay Area. East Alameda is exposed to the same air pollution. 100 K trees plans to plant 100,000 trees in Alameda, and in every surrounding city, as a protective filtration against the harmful pollution, heat and drought that threaten these communities.

Madeline Brandyburg waits at a west Alameda intersection with a group of six friends and family from around Alameda County, on Sunday, June 4, 2023, in Alameda, CA. Four of the seven children have either grown up with or developed asthma while living in the East Bay. From 2019 to 2020, Alameda county had nearly a third more cases of childhood asthma than the California average.

(L-R) Matteo Ayala, Karina Salsa and Sonja Gonzalez stand with their children, while George Ayala retrieves his son, Vincent, on Sunday, June 4, 2023, in the west end of Alameda, CA. George Ayala and Sonja Gonzales recently moved to Alameda, but haven’t been irritated by pollution from the nearby Oakland ports and highways. “Alameda gave [my kids] a place to live… My kids are playing. They have a home,” said George Ayala, who, together with Sonja and their eldest son, lived in and out of housing in San Jose, before moving to Alameda.