Policy, Communications, and Advocacy

17 Articles in this category

Policy, Communications, and Advocacy

17 Articles in this category

The Role of Local Government in the Care of Urban Forested Natural Areas

Urban natural areas are crucial for enhancing city livability and environmental health but are often overlooked, underfunded, and missing formal protection, which leads to loss of ecological benefits, missed opportunities for community engagement an...

Land Protection and Habitat Restoration as Catalysts for Sustained Community Engagement at the Roslindale Wetlands Urban Wild

The Roslindale Wetlands “Urban Wild,” a 10-acre forested wetland in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, is the backdrop for a compelling story of land preservation and habitat restoration as primary drivers for sustained community engagement. Origin...

City of Houston Nature Preserve Ordinance

The City of Houston’s Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD) created a first-of-its-kind Nature Preserve Ordinance to protect existing natural habitat within 26 parks totaling 7,423 acres of land. The purpose of this ordinance is to preserve and pr...

Conservation Easements: legal Principles, Valuation, and Applications

Conservation easements play an important role in protecting natural landscapes and sensitive habitats, and in promoting sustainable land use practices. In this course, students will explore the principles, applications, controversies, and implicatio...

Protecting Urban Forested Natural Areas: Strategies for Conservation in Cities

This report summarizes the main threats to one type of urban natural area–forests–and the strategies cities use to minimize or negate these threats. Overall, this report shows that cities use various tactics such as ordinances, zoning, land acquisit...

Austin Community Tree Report

This interactive tree report uses data from the city of Austin's tree planting and urban forestry team to show the public where, when, how, and why trees are planted in their city. Webmaps, intuitive graphs, photos, and clear descriptions make this ...

Protecting the Urban Forest Through Tree Preservation and Land Development Regulations in Austin, Texas

The City of Austin has some of the most progressive urban forest and environmental land development regulations in the country. The City directly protects trees and forested natural areas through tree preservation ordinances and indirectly through d...

Chicago Regional Trees Initiative Priority Map

This interactive story map depicts the Chicago metro region. It combines layers of tree canopy cover, surface temperature, flood risk, air quality, vulnerable populations, and operational capacity to enable land managers to identify key challenges f...

Tree Preservation Ordinance Templates

These templates, provided by the Chicago Regional Trees Initiative, provide a starting place for drafting rules for tree protection at a municipal level. Though much of the suggested language refers to street trees, or individual trees on private pr...

Preservation, Regulations, and Policy to Protect and Grow Baltimore's Forests

Baltimore’s urban forest is vulnerable to development and infrastructure projects. This is particularly true for development projects small enough to avoid triggering any review or mitigation requirements, and for large scale projects where—even wit...

Conservation Strategies for a Rare Ecosystem in Miami-Dade County

Pine rocklands are a globally critically imperiled ecosystem with limited geographic range, characterized by a high biodiversity of endemic herbaceous plants and frequent fire intervals (2-5 years). In Miami-Dade County, approximately 2% of the fore...

Baltimore City Supplement to the State Forest Conservation Manual

The Maryland Forest Conservation Act was signed into law in 1991, creating development rules to minimize the loss of existing forests and replenish tree cover. The City of Baltimore has adopted local legislation in compliance with the State law, and...

The Scientific Benefit of Trees for People: A Literature Review

This short literature review provides 79 citations for the benefits of trees in the urban environment. This list of citations is not comprehensive, and does not contain citations that describe the potential drawbacks of trees, or tree inequities pos...

Urban Forest Protection Strategy in Indianapolis

This data-driven framework, coordinated by the Indiana Forest Alliance , identifies forested natural areas that are not protected, assesses their quality and establishes priorities for preserving high quality forests and forest cover in general. Th...

Strategic Planning to Acquire and Manage Ecological Coordinators in Urbanizing Hillsborough County

The Florida Legislature passed the 1985 Growth Management Act in response to sustained rapid development. The Act required development of comprehensive land use plans for every county within the state. The comprehensive plans were required to have g...

Perpetual Protection for Atlanta's High-Quality Forested Land in the City

Unlike most major U.S. cities, developed and industrialized decades earlier, Atlanta retains a large portion of its native and originally forested land with a high diversity of species, rare plants, and even old-growth trees. A 2008 baseline canopy ...

Preserving Nature in New York City: NYC Parks' Forever Wild Program

Urban biodiversity has increasingly been recognized as providing multiple local, regional, and even global benefits. In New York City (NYC), conservation and planning professionals in the Department of Parks and Recreation (NYC Parks) pursued biodiv...

The Forests in Cities Network is a national network dedicated to promoting and advancing healthy forested natural areas in cities across America through science, management, partnerships, and communications. The Forests in Cities Network was created in 2019 by the Natural Areas Conservancy.

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