In 2007, after a run of hurricanes, the City of Miami joined other local municipalities by signing on to an ambitious goal: roughly doubling total citywide tree canopy to 30 percent by 2020.

The announcement, made with much fanfare by then-Mayor Manny Diaz, came with a comprehensive blueprint of strategies and initiatives — the Miami Tree Master Plan – to get there.

Five years after the deadline, the city is nowhere near its goal, and may even be back where it started.

That’s the conclusion of Florida International University (FIU) environmental scientist Chris Baraloto, who has developed computer modeling to track both the short- and long-term impacts of tree removal.

Baraloto, associate director of FIU’s International Center for Tropical Botany, announced his findings last Friday f

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