Urban and Community Forestry Framework: A Comprehensive Approach to Integrate Forestry into Communities Nationwide (13-DG-11132544-416)

The Vibrant Cities & Urban Forests: A National Call to Action1 report released in 2011, acknowledges a growing awareness that making real, sustainable progress in urban forestry and green infrastructure programs requires collaboration among citizens, organizations, and industry and local, state, and federal government, a challenge we have heard repeatedly in our Team’s examination of the institutional landscape for green infrastructure implementation in the U.S.

The National Association of Regional Councils (NARC) and Virginia Tech’s Center for Leadership in Global Sustainability (CLiGS) are pleased to propose a one-year project to develop a framework to support regional councils and metropolitan planning organization alliances as catalysts and brokers of cross-sector partnerships to develop more integrated, collaborative and sustainable green infrastructure programs that include urban forests as a central element. The target audience for this framework is regional councils and metropolitan planning organizations because they are well positioned to serve as catalysts for change and brokering roles across jurisdictions to affect cooperation, planning and policy decisions. NARC and CLiGS (Team) is proposing to develop a freely available online framework, consisting of a series of descriptive processes, and supporting resources and materials, to facilitate green infrastructure program development at regional and local levels.

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