Green Seattle Partnership Models Regional Urban Natural Areas Restoration Efforts

The Green Seattle Partnership (GSP) was launched in 2005 to create a model for urban forest natural area restoration in the Puget Sound region of western Washington. To date, thirteen other municipalities and one county have adopted the Green City Partnership model to utilize a 20-year strategic planning process to prioritize and guide natural area restoration programing. Initial planning work includes taking stock of the community and ecological resources and defining costs. Not all prioritization and planning efforts live in the strategic plan. During the fourteen years since the launch of the GSP, annual planning efforts have been responsive to broader city and community priorities, as well as to current conditions captured in work records and monitoring data.

In a nutshell, this resource offers:

• A description of how a successful urban forest restoration initiative in Seattle spread to 13 nearby municipalities.
• An explanation of how to adapt a local plan to suit other cities.
• Ideas for what to include in an urban forested natural area strategic plan.
• Insight into how social values change over time and inform updates to new versions of strategic planning documents.
• Information on how these efforts in Seattle and other nearby cities were funded. 

How to use this resource:

• As a guide to adapting strategic plans that incorporate shifts in social values, latest best practices, and updated field data.
• As a proof point to the value and need for a long-term urban forested natural areas plan to prioritize field work.

Author: Andrea K. Mojzak

Date published:  2020

Point of contact: Lisa Ciecko, Plant Ecologist, Green Seattle Partnership, lisa.ciecko@seattle.gov 

Citation: Mojzak, A. K.; Ciecko, L. A.; Brinkley, W. R.; and Yadrick, M. T. 2020. Green Seattle Partnership Models Regional Urban Natural Areas Restoration Efforts. Cities and the Environment (CATE): Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 8.

Resource is available online here.