Speaker: Hester Schwarzer
Trees provide habitat for many species of animals, plants, and microorganisms. Whether used for shelter or food, for courtship, nesting, or hunting platforms, trees are wildlife magnets: their flowers, fruits, leaves, buds, and woody parts are enjoyed by many different species of animals.
After a childhood in the East Texas bottomlands, Hester married and moved to Colorado for 30 years, where she earned a college degree from UCCS with a double major in education and environmental science. While raising her own family, she taught elementary school at the USAF Academy for 8 years before returning to Texas in the early '80s.
Back home, Hester resumed her teaching and naturalist careers with renewed fervor and began volunteering one day per month at the Fort Worth Nature Center, where she expanded her knowledge of the local ecology and honed her skills as a presenter of natural history programs.
Inevitably, one day Hester ran into a kindred soul, Molly Hollar, who immediately recruited her to help in the Arlington wildscape that now bears her name, and thus began a lifelong friendship and an extensive catalog of volunteer activities with multiple organizations for Hester.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments is developing the Dallas-Fort Worth Air Quality Improvement Plan with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve local air quality over the next five years. 
