Since the 1800s, the American chestnut tree has struggled to survive. Ink disease followed by chestnut blight killed billions of trees from Appalachia to Michigan. Though some are still scattered across the country, the chestnut has been functionally extinct for 70 years.

But scientists in Maine are hoping to bring back the keystone species and create the “biggest ecological turnaround in North American history.” Thomas Klak, professor of environmental studies at the University of New England, recently helped develop a strain of American chestnut resistant to the blight that has decimated their numbers. And in May 2021, the federal government approved a plan to plant hundreds of these chestnut seedlings in an experimental orchard in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

In a few years, the genetically engineered chestnuts will be introduced to the fungus that decimated its ancestors, and until then, the jury is out on if these trees will ever make their way into the wild.

Nation’s largest heat-mapping project planned for Virginia

Colleges and universities across 10 Virginia cities are coming together to conduct the first large-scale statewide heat-mapping project to understand how temperatures vary from city block to city block. During Summer 2021, students and volunteers recorded ambient air temperature and relative humidity data from locations with plenty of trees and vegetation, as well as in industrial areas and locations with a lot of asphalt in cities like Arlington, Richmond, Salem and Virginia Beach. The Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges has organized the project, and colleges will use the data in courses and research projects. Urban forestry professionals can also use the data to help identify places that need more tree cover. This level of analysis can be useful to cities as they grow and make decisions about where to plant more trees and where to place cooling centers. The project also aims to foster relationships between schools and residents, community leaders and local government.

Mushrooms provide natural method for cleaning up hazardous waste

When wildfires roar through a community, they not only leave death and destruction in their wake, they also leave hazardous waste. Charred paint, pesticides, cleaning products, electronics, pressure-treated wood and propane tanks deposit a range of pollutants in the soil — including arsenic, asbestos, copper, hexavalent chromium, lead and zinc. Runoff from this toxic ash could pollute local creeks, impacting water supplies and wildlife.

Over the past several years, forest advocates have championed “mycoremediation,” an experimental bioremediation technique that uses mushrooms to clean up hazardous waste, harnessing their natural ability to use enzymes to break down foreign substances.

Proponents say it’s a natural — and potentially cheaper — alternative to the “scrape-and-burn” approach to environmental cleanup, which involves digging up contaminated soil and incinerating it, often negatively impacting potentially fertile topsoil. While more testing and research is needed, the coming fire seasons will, unfortunately, provide plenty of opportunity to do so.

Neglected forestland turned “Peace Park”

For years, 10 acres of ignored Baltimore forestland was used for illegal dumping until one pastor saw it for what it could be: an oasis of greenspace for worship and fellowship. Pastor Michael Martin of Stillmeadow Community Fellowship brought together a diverse group of people — worshipers, environmentalists, neighbors and students — to cut down dead trees and pot over 1,000 new trees, between June 2020 and May 2021, to create a nursery. As the new poplar and willow trees grow, organizers believe so will the faith and peace of those who come to enjoy the space for years to come. Ultimately, Stillmeadow hopes to expand the greenspace by planting more trees to help create a healthy urban forest complete with trails, meditation stations and gardens. Stillmeadow PeacePark will serve as a place for people, especially those of faith, to connect with nature.

The post Forest Footnotes appeared first on American Forests.

Photo Credit: Illustration by Matthew Twombly

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Together, they have contributed billions in financing, led a diverse array of forest management and workplace development activities, and pledged to conserve, restore and grow over 50 billion trees worldwide.

This dedicated network of forest allies and advocates aims to create healthy forests in rural and urban areas that can help slow climate change, clean the air and water, generate jobs, and provide habitat for wildlife and nature for people to enjoy.

Behind the high-profile pledges are hundreds of people working together to get the work done. They are bringing the pledges to life. The following stories highlight the essential work that comes from them. From members of The Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Network (SFLR), to the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), employees of REI Co-op, and the communities and local leaders of the City of Dallas, it takes people power and collaborative partnerships to achieve the trillion trees goal.

REI

A U.S. Forest Service ranger and a volunteer plant a tree during an REI stewardship event aimed at dismantling illegal campsites in Grand Lake, Colo., just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo Credit: REI

As a cooperative — an enterprise democratically owned by its members — REI is comfortable with partnership and collaboration. REI, an outdoor and recreational retailer, was formed in 1938 under the mantra that “a life outdoors is a life well-lived.” Over the decades, as the climate crisis and its impacts on the outdoors and on society became increasingly harsh, REI began looking for more impactful ways to engage its community in environmental and social advocacy.

“In the outdoor industry, we ask, ‘what’s our value-add?’” says Marc Berejka, director of community advocacy and impact at REI. “From REI’s perspective, we think we ought to be leaning into strategies that reinforce and reinvigorate the health of our natural environment. Trees are the quintessential tool to meet that need. Let’s not forget that healthy forests mean healthy soils, mean clean water, mean clean air, mean great places to recreate, camp, hang out. If we’re talking about climate, forests are fundamental.”

In partnership with the National Forest Foundation — as well as REI’s 20 million lifetime co-op members and nearly 15,000 employees — REI has pledged to plant at least 1 million trees across U.S. National Forests over the next decade. But the work doesn’t stop there for Berejka and the REI team. In addition, the cooperative pledged this year to cut the company’s greenhouse gas emissions in half and launched the REI Cooperative Action Network as a means of more deeply engaging community members. Fittingly, the first action item on the newly formed network has both a forest and a climate focus: Help pass the Repair Existing Public Land by Adding Necessary Trees (REPLANT) Act, legislation that also is supported by American Forests.

“The more of us who are working on this together, the further we can get faster,” Berejka explains. “Cooperative Action Network is our name for the network, of course, but also we really believe in the power of cooperative action. There’s so much to being part of the 1t.org com- munity, even beyond addressing climate change. By all these different stakeholders linking arms under the 1t.org banner, we’re driving additional value back into the environment and society.”

Asked what he thinks individuals and commu- nities should do to help make a difference, Berejka stresses the importance of pairing community efforts like tree planting with civic engagement and advocacy.

“It’s noisy out there, there are a lot of dis- tractions and things calling for our attention,” Berejka says. “One of the inspiring things about the 1t.org mission is that it’s a call to action.

When you look at a tree, I’d like people to realize how much that tree is really giving back. And once you’ve got that in hand, what’s next? Think about how can you raise awareness with more people, who can you get involved with, what steps can you take.”

SFLR

Steve Brown of Weyerhaeuser (left) and a McIntosh SEED landowner (right) at a Landowner Field Day where they observed the site-preparation process and learned about the various species of trees on the property and their growth time frames. Photo Credit: SFLR

Between 1865 and 1919, African Americans amassed 15 million acres of forests and other land across the American South. Now, just a century later, 97% of that land has been lost or stolen, due to inadequate or non-existent legal representation, discrimination in lending practices, unethical purchases, racism and myriad other factors.

SFLR helps African American forest owners realize the value of their lands so that forests are seen as an asset, not a burden. The organization works with landowners to address heirs’ property issues — when familial land has been passed down without legal documentation, such as a will. The organization also educates landowners about the value of forests and how to responsibly manage them. SFLR provides the tools and connections to level the playing field for African American landowners, who have historically not had equal access to resources or equal ability to maintain forestlands. Their ultimate goal: keeping African American lands “forested and in the family.”

“The SFLR program is bringing to the landowners’ attention how the economic impact of managing their land can be a benefit to family members — especially to the ones coming behind them, such as their children and grandchildren,” says Herman Baker, an SFLR program participant in Georgia.

Recognizing that African American forestland owners face unique hurdles and require specialized support to keep their land healthy, productive and in the family, SFLR’s 1t.org pledge includes wrap-around support for them. This includes programming to connect African American landowners to financial and technical resources to help them conserve and manage the land most effectively, as well as land tenure education, legal assistance and the development of a forestry jobs pipeline for African American youth. In order to provide these services across their eight anchor sites (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas), SFLR and their members work with a network of federal and local partners, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), American Forest Foundation and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.

“Access to resources and information is really key,” says John Littles, executive director of McIntosh Sustainable Environment and Economic Development (McIntosh SEED), the SFLR anchor site in Georgia. “Heirs’ property rights are extremely complicated, and not every owner knows how to navigate that system correctly. There are even certain landowners who don’t know that property taxes have to be paid every year.”

“Our partnerships, with anchor site leaders, 1t.org, USDA and others are critical to our ability to serve African American forest owners across the South,” says Ebonie Alexander, executive director of the Black Family Land Trust in Virginia. “Through partnerships, we can become more visible, and the more visible we are, the easier it is for African American forest owners to find us and connect to the critical resources that will help them keep their lands forested and in the family.”

GSUSA

Troop 20563 from West Orange, N.J., plants dogwood trees at The Oval Girl Scout Camp within the South Mountain Reservation, where Girl Scout volunteers and adults planted a “picnic grove” of dogwood trees. The Girl Scouts also planted 450 native tree seedlings in three forest regeneration areas that the Girl Scouts will “adopt” and care for. Photo Credit: GSHNJ

Scouts may start out small in stature, but with a global community of 1.7 million girls and their families spanning 152 countries, the Girl Scouts’ impact is anything but. Fueled by their passion for protecting and preserving our planet, GSUSA — with support from the Elliott Wildlife Values Project and American Forests — launched the Girl Scout Tree Promise this year. It is a national initiative to plant 5 million trees across the United States by 2026.

“When we were looking at how to address the climate crisis,” says GSUSA National Director of Outdoor Strategy Amanda Daly, “it was important to me and my colleagues that we were providing our girls with a solution-based action, not a crisis- focused one. By committing to 1t.org to plant 5 million trees, our girls can serve as both change makers and stewards. Girl Scouts are blazing the trail for youth to lead on the climate crisis.”

From Girl Scout Daisies to Ambassadors to family members and community partners, every member and friend of the GSUSA movement has a role in helping to reach the tree goal. At roughly five months into their 1t.org pledge, GSUSA already has over 34,000 trees in the ground — in every state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. The organization is using resources from American Forests to ensure the right trees are planted in the right places. For Kelly McDonald, staff for Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey (GSHNJ), the Tree Promise program couldn’t have come at a better time.

“We had already been working on some tree-focused activity in New Jersey through an online program called Speak for the Trees, which was all about learning why trees are awesome and what their superpowers are,” McDonald says. “By the time we launched Tree Promise as a local council, our girls were so excited. As fast as we built the programs, they filled up. We couldn’t keep up with demand.”

Between February and May, more than 560 New Jersey girls along with family and community members planted 4,418 trees. In reflecting on what’s made GSHNJ’s programs so successful, McDonald emphasizes how important partner relationships have been in engaging her Girl Scouts and the community on environmental and climate issues.

“We have a chance with the Tree Promise to raise an entire generation of girls who care about making the world a better place, who care about conserving and restoring our nation’s forests,” says McDonald. “The partnerships that Tree Promise has helped us form, like with the AmeriCorps Watershed Ambassador Program, Sourland Conservancy and South Mountain Conservancy, and the volunteers it’s driven to us are resources that are going to help our girls lead in their community and be champions for environmental justice for years to come.”

DALLAS

One key element of Dallas’ multifaceted initiatives includes protecting 6,000 acres of hardwood bottomland forest in the Great Trinity Forest, located on the southern outskirts of Dallas. Photo Credit: DanVanPelt / Shutterstock

After being pummeled by 16 different natural disasters in 2017, the U.S. set a new record high for costs related to extreme weather and major climate-related disasters: roughly $306 billion, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Texas was among the states worst hit that year: Hurricane Harvey killed more than 70 people and caused approximately $125 billion in damage. With the human and financial costs from extreme weather events expected to continue rising, many Texas state and municipal leaders have joined forces with partners at the national level to help develop sustainable solutions. Assistant Director of Dallas’ Office of Environmental Quality and Sustainability Susan Alvarez credits strong partnerships for much of the success her department has seen in developing and implementing climate-smart forestry initiatives.

“I’m just one person,” says Alvarez, “so it’s been amazing to be able to connect with community- level experts, as well as with the global 1t.org community. That network lets me learn from other pledges and find new resources and inspiration for our Dallas Urban Forest Initiative. It’s especially helpful to know that other cities are experiencing the same challenges and to learn how they’ve dealt with them.”

Together with her partners, Alvarez has developed several multi-faceted initiatives to combat the extreme heat, flooding and poor air quality caused by tree canopy loss and climate change.

Key elements include protecting 6,000 acres of hardwood bottomland forest in the Great Trinity Forest; implementing the Branching Out Dallas program to plant an estimated 31,000 native trees in the city over the next 10 years; and implementing Dallas’ Urban Forest Management Plan, a cohesive plan to plant, protect, maintain, preserve and increase urban canopy.

To achieve their ambitious goals, Dallas officials knew that they would need to work closely with community members and local experts.

“The key to this work is in building healthy, open and honest relationships,” Alvarez says. “We had some resistance going in, and we had to work through that — mostly by being pests. We held a lot of meetings and worked very hard to build consensus. The public voice is powerful. We’re doing this initiative, doing our climate plan because our community showed up at our budget meetings and demanded we talk about these things.”

President and CEO of the Texas Trees Foundation Janette Monear, who works closely with Alvarez on the Dallas pledge and Urban Forest Initiative, underscored how important community collaboration has been to the city’s pledge progress.

“Through these partnerships, you can get so much more done,” Monear says. “Susan and I are texting back and forth at night and on the weekend. We’re collaborating because we have a relationship that’s open and built on trust. When you have that kind of (connection), it’s amazing what can happen.”

A GLOBAL COMMUNITY

As we pass this milestone of 50 billion trees and look down the road to 1 trillion trees, Goodall’s words about connections ring truer than ever. Now is the time for all of us — big, small and in between — to do our part. Dedicated advocates like those at SFLR, GSUSA, REI and the city of Dallas are leading the way and showcasing how community partnerships can help us conserve, restore and grow our way to 1 trillion trees.

Reana Kovalcik serves as a communications advisor for American Forests and the Forest-Climate Working Group.

To learn more about 1t.org, visit us.1t.org.

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These elevated stakes help explain why American Forests has made a commitment to keeping score — which we hope will lead to more people taking action to advance social equity and slow climate change, in part through the power of trees.

This started with the launch of our Tree Equity Score in June. This tool, the first of its kind, gives a neighborhood-by-neighborhood and municipal-level assessment of tree cover in every urban area across America. It overlays data that shows where the lack of trees most strongly puts people at risk from extreme heat, air pollution and other climate- fueled threats.

Collectively, the scores tell several compelling stories. For instance, on average, the lowest income neighborhoods have 41% less tree cover than high-income neighborhoods, and neighborhoods with a majority of residents of color have 33% less tree cover than majority white neighborhoods. This has life or death consequences, given that neighborhoods with little to no tree cover can be 10 degrees hotter than the city average during the day, and even more at night. In these same places, there is a higher percentage of people with elevated risk factors, such as heat-related illnesses and deaths because of lack of air conditioning.

That’s where Tree Equity Score comes in. By naming and framing this dangerous inequity with data and putting it online for all to see and explore, we have brought unprecedented attention to the importance of trees in advancing social equity. This includes a major feature in the New York Times, co-authored by our own Ian Leahy, vice president of urban forestry.

But this tool does much more than just identify the problem. It is as easy to use as a smart phone, making it simple for anyone, from city leaders to city residents, to calculate how many trees are needed for a city to achieve Tree Equity in every neighborhood. They also can see the economic and environmental benefits that would be generated, such as the tons of air pollution removed annually and number of jobs supported.

As evidence that Tree Equity Score can catalyze meaningful change, the Phoenix City Council voted in April to achieve Tree Equity in every one of the city’s neighborhoods by 2030. Other cities are following suit. And Congressional leaders, such as U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Representative Doris Matsui (D-Calif.), are using it to make the case for unprecedented federal investment in urban trees and forests.

This data-driven approach is not limited to our work in cities. The Reforestation Hub, which we developed in partnership with The Nature Conservancy in January, doesn’t generate scores. But it does use cutting-edge scientific analysis of all U.S. land to identify where more trees could be added, from burn scars on national forests to streamside tree buffers on farms. It identifies a total opportunity of 133 million acres, enough land to plant more than 60 billion trees.

This has huge implications for climate change. That many additional trees would increase annual carbon capture in U.S. forests by more than 40%, equivalent to removing the emissions from 72 million cars.

Like Tree Equity Score, the Reforestation Hub is a free and easy-to-use tool meant to catalyze action. It is searchable county-by-county, enabling everyone to explore how our reforestation opportunities overlap with different land ownerships and conservation purposes, such as wildlife habitat and water protection. It also provides a calculation of the additional carbon capture that would be achieved if a given area were reforested. At American Forests, we use it often to advocate for reforestation legislation and make decisions about where to do our reforestation projects.

I encourage you to jump online and check out these powerful new tools. I hope that you will be inspired by our use of data to measurably challenge America and our own organization to meet this moment.

For more news and updates from Jad, follow him on Twitter @JadDaley

To learn more about Tree Equity Score, visit treeequityscore.org, and to learn more about the Reforestation Hub, visit reforestationhub.org.

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Fascinated by this tree and its industrious pine-cone excavator, Tomback went back to the university where she was finishing her master’s degree and read everything she could find about whitebark pine and the mystery bird, which she learned was a Clark’s nutcracker. Tomback found that virtually nothing except anecdotal observations had been written about the bird in the scientific literature, save for a nesting study and a molting study. “So when I started at the University of California, Santa Barbara (on my Ph.D.), I knew exactly what I wanted to study,” she says.

Tomback did more than study. She literally wrote the book on whitebark pine and detailed the Clark’s nutcracker’s unique and critical role in the ecosystem. Through her doctoral research, Tomback discovered that the bird was the primary seed disperser for whitebark pine. Clark’s nutcrackers transport the seeds in a specialized throat pouch and bury them across the mountainsides for later consumption, helping whitebark pine regenerate, including in areas burned by wildfires.

That natural repopulation is crucial to many high-elevation forests across the western United States and Canada. The tree creates critical plant and wildlife habitat and is instrumental to protecting regional water supplies. But unfortunately, whitebarks are rapidly vanishing, largely due to an introduced fungal disease, white pine blister rust, that has wiped out 90% of the pines in many northern forests. American Forests has made saving the whitebark pine a priority.

In 1986, Tomback was invited to join a federal research team investigating whitebark pine declines. The book she co-wrote — “Whitebark Pine Communities: Ecology and Restoration” — along with the more than 100 scientific papers and book chapters that Tomback has written on the species, were some of the main resources for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when it proposed to list whitebark pine as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). A listing could come as early as this year and would represent the widest ranging forest tree species ever listed under the ESA.

Looking beyond the listing though, Tomback has been working feverishly with American Forests and the U.S. Forest Service — partnering as well with other federal agencies and tribal governments — on a national restoration plan for whitebark pine. If action is not taken, experts believe it’s possible that a combination of the fungal diseases, native pest outbreaks, competition from other trees (due to fire suppression) and climate change could see whitebark pine go extinct across much of its range. Intensive human intervention is, unfortunately, essential to preserve these iconic trees and the biodiverse communities they support.

“I have seen first-hand the passion, grit, determination and creativity Diana brings to whitebark pine science and restoration,” says Elizabeth Pansing, senior manager of forest and restoration science at American Forests, who was a mentee of Tomback during her master’s and doctoral research. “Her contributions to our understanding of its natural history and ecology — and push for coordinated and science-based restoration efforts across its range — have been, and will continue to be, integral to the success of its restoration and long-term persistence.”

Fortunately, Tomback had the wherewithal to co-found the Whitebark Pine Ecosystem Foundation in 2001. The foundation has connected the forest management and scientific communities and created financial and political momentum behind saving the whitebark pine.

“I am at the capstone of a fairly long career,” says Tomback, who currently serves as professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Colorado Denver. “But I believe in the mission, with fire in the belly. I want to see this restoration plan written, then disseminated and work begun on funding. And I’d like to see the federal agencies take the lead as we target these different core areas for restoration. Making sure that whitebark pine will be around after the next century is one of the reasons for getting up in the morning.”

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In this case, he is excited that the rain will cool down his city, which has been dealing with scorching summer heat for several years. Last year, Phoenix broke the record for most recorded high heat days, reaching over 143 days above 100 degrees. Such high temperatures can cause severe illness and death, making them a threat to everyone. But the negative impact is not felt equally throughout the city.

In south Phoenix, for example, many neighborhoods are 10 degrees hotter than those in others parts of Maricopa County (home to Phoenix), according to American Forests’ Tree Equity Score. Perea has felt this heat firsthand when walking the streets in south Phoenix, where he is a community organizer. He also felt it during his 20-year career in construction, a profession he entered in the 1990s when he moved from his home in Chihuahua, Mexico to Phoenix following the enactment of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Every morning, Masavi Perea begins his day with a run along the canal before working with south Phoenix residents to address environmental justice issues. Photo Credit: Joel Clark / American Forests

“We would start early in the morning to try and beat the sun,” he recalls. “But I remember my body feeling so numb because we had to cover every part of ourselves so we wouldn’t burn. I had to work through it to provide for my family.”

After witnessing people get sick from the heat and receive inadequate care from their employers, Perea joined the “Justice for Roofers Campaign” so he could advocate for the rights of outdoor workers.

A few years later, he realized that what he and others experienced working in the heat was an environmental justice issue. The outdoor labor community in Phoenix is predominantly a migrant community. The people within it often feel like they are invisible to society, which can lead to unfair and unsafe labor conditions.

Perea now helps build heat resilience in communities by advocating for more trees and other greenspaces. He focuses on places where people are living with the side effects of redlining — discriminatory housing practices in predominately Black and Latinx neighborhoods dating back to the 1930s. Redlining also laid the groundwork for a lack of investment in greenspace — and other resources — in predominately Black and Latinx neighborhoods. That is one of the main reasons why there are fewer trees in those neighborhoods, as well as why those neighborhoods are hotter than whiter and wealthier ones. We now know that trees can cool a neighborhood by as much as 10 degrees.

People living in neighborhoods that do not have enough trees can be more exposed to smog — dangerous air pollution that is intensified under climate change-induced heat waves. Smog can make it difficult to breath, triggering asthma attacks and spiking emergency room visits. Photo Credit: Joel Clark / American Forests

Perea often comes up against resistance to planting trees. People tell him, “The heat has gotten worse and trees can help, but we live in the desert so maybe it has to be this hot.” Perea found the same sentiment in 2017, when he helped create a Heat Action Plan with residents from three Phoenix neighborhoods. Those working on it found that “at the community level, there is a sense that extreme heat is too large a problem for neighborhoods to tackle, and a general resignation among residents that this is ‘just the way it is.’”

To inspire people to tackle extreme heat in Phoenix, Perea speaks to residents about how temperatures in their neighborhoods can have an effect on their health. Doing so has led to greater community support for investment in trees because many now see the lack of greenspace as an environmental justice issue, he says.

In one of the projects that Perea works on, community members identify “hot spots” where trees will be planted this fall. Some are also being trained as “community health workers” charged with sharing information about extreme heat and health with their neighbors.

Perea believes that community organizing is the most effective way to empower and positively impact communities disproportionately affected by extreme heat. Photo Credit: Joel Clark / American Forests

They have their work cut out for them. Phoenix needs to plant and care for 2 million more trees in neighborhoods that do not have enough in order to achieve Tree Equity, in which everyone can reap the benefits trees provide, no matter their income, race or neighborhood, according to Tree Equity Score. The City of Phoenix has already committed to achieving Tree Equity by 2030. Reliable and accessible data tools, such as Tree Equity Score, will help Perea, other tree advocates and city officials make the case for planting trees in neighborhoods where, for example, families cannot afford to run their air conditioning units 169 days out of the year — the average number of days Phoenix experiences temperatures of 90 degrees or higher.

More days than not, many Phoenix neighborhoods seem deserted because it is simply too hot to come outside.

But on this morning, after the downpour, people emerge from their homes as if they’ve been eagerly waiting for the rain all along. Perea witnesses more people than usual join him on the canal, running and walking with their families.

And the sight gives him hope. Perea envisions a future where the trees that were planted some 20 or 30 years earlier have grown so much their crowns supply cooling benefits to everyone. He believes the desert can be cool enough for people to live in, if those most affected by extreme heat are engaged in creating nature-based solutions. As he prioritizes the south Phoenix neighborhoods that need more trees today, he is playing a role in the creation of a cooler future for his children and grandchildren.

“I am working to expand urban greenspaces in my community today, so that the next generation can live healthier lives.”

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Red-tailed hawks, peregrine falcons, bald eagles and other birds of prey have made their homes in places like Washington, D.C. They build nests atop and in the nooks of buildings, become more cautious in their hunting patterns to avoid cars, and provide countless hours of fascination for their human neighbors. But because of their location, these city-dwelling raptors may be at greater risk of certain threats than their forest-bound kin. Risks like colliding with windows, ingesting hazardous chemicals and being killed by cars when hunting and scavenging along roadways. Rehabilitation organizations — such as the Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, Md. — work to save injured raptors. The center’s mission is to rescue and rehabilitate injured, sick and orphaned birds of prey and return them to the wild in sound, athletic condition.

After being injured by a car, this red-shouldered hawk was brought to the Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyds, Md. At the center, it undergoes flight training to build back strength so it can return to the wild. Photo Credit: Jules Jacobs

From the top of a street lamp, a red-shouldered hawk scans the road below. Photo Credit: Jules Jacobs

At the Owl Moon Raptor Center, two flight rehab volunteers work with a red-shouldered hawk. Photo Credit: Jules Jacobs

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Kimple eventually migrated upriver into the Pagosa Springs region of Southwest Colorado, plying the San Juan River, the Colorado River and sometimes returning to the Rio Grande. He and his wife, Kathy, fell in love with the mountains, rivers, snow and skiing, and moved to Durango in 2000. In Colorado, he found his calling.

Aaron Kimple, a leading proponent of shared stewardship, paddling the Animas River in Colorado. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Aaron Kimple

It was the beginning of a career defined by connections — between land, water and people — and a stark realization about what needs to be done to protect them. Kimple is now the director of the Mountain Studies Institute’s forest health program, where he oversees watershed and forest health initiatives and facilitates community stakeholder groups.

That facilitation is the crux of his life’s mission. His “second job” is coordinator of the Two Watersheds, Three Rivers, Two States (2-3-2) Cohesive Strategy Partnership, a mouthful of a title that belies a simple premise: by working across boundaries, at large scale and with multiple stakeholders, land managers can achieve much more than they could by focusing on individual projects with limited boundaries, size and partners.

“It’s just an intriguing endeavor,” Kimple says of the origins of the 2-3-2. “We were really beginning this idea that we can bring money from the state side and the federal side, incorporate local and foundational investments, and instead of patchworking our work across the landscape, we can really consolidate it and have a true impact.”

This led to working across state lines with New Mexico, on water issues primarily, and on wildfires that burned across borders, including one that jumped the Continental Divide and heavily impacted the Rio Grande watershed.

“When we started recognizing those connections, we said, ‘How do we come together to think about this?’” Kimple adds. “Rather than competing, how can we work together to leverage our efforts and truly have that landscape-scale impact?”

That concept is known as shared stewardship, and it’s revolutionizing wildfire management, forest and watershed protection, drought control, and the ongoing battle with disease and pest outbreaks across the United States. Instead of focusing on disconnected, individual projects working with limited partners or agencies, shared stewardship actively encourages organizations to join forces and work across state, county or jurisdictional lines.

“Any one group, agency or landowner is not able to fix our forest health problems,” says Brian Kittler, senior director of forest restoration at American Forests. “Turning to each other, building trust and building projects together, and then finding ways to co-plan, develop, fund and implement bigger projects at a larger scale together for a greater impact — that, to me, is what shared stewardship is about.”

Working together has become increasingly important, given the growing scope of problems devastating large swaths of forest.

Kittler, for example, points to the Western U.S. as a place where a combination of stressors and disturbance patterns across a much larger scale are pushing ecosystems to a tipping point. Widespread pest outbreaks and long-term drought — both linked to climate change — are creating significant tree die-offs, he says.

“And then a large wildfire comes through and burns at very high severity. There’s essentially no live cone-bearing trees left because of the beetle outbreak and the drought that killed the trees, so you have large, large areas in some of these landscapes that aren’t going to be naturally regenerating.”

All of these stressors, when combined with a legacy of fire suppression and uncoordinated forest management, have led to critical conditions in many forests and watersheds.

SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Shared stewardship is a relatively new term. A 2018 vision and policy statement by former U.S. Forest Service (USFS) Chief Vicki Christiansen helped brand the term and bring it to a much wider audience. But the idea and practices behind it have been around for decades and practiced in many parts of the world.

In the grasslands of southern Nepal and northern India, the Terai Arc Landscape links 16 protected areas into a contiguous habitat for tigers, rhinos and elephants. Community forest user groups are empowered to help man- age forest corridors between the protected areas while also benefiting from tourism income and livelihood improvement projects.

Shared stewardship is practiced in many parts of the world. In the Khata Corridor bordering Bardia National Park in western Nepal's Terai Arc Landscape, the grasslands are sustainably managed by a Community Coordination Forest Committee (CFCC). The land was previously barren due to over-grazing, but has now been regenerated through the CFCC, which was established with the support of World Wildlife Fund and allows communities to benefit from the land while also restoring<br /> forest corridors for wildlife. The Khata Corridor connects Bardia National Park in Nepal with Katerniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary in India. Photo Credit: © Simon De Trey-White / WWF-UK

In the U.S., the USFS has long worked with tribes, states, communities and collaborative groups on reforestation and restoration. New policies, evolving science and strategic shifts toward more robust partnerships with communities and stakeholders have helped push shared stewardship to the forefront.

One of the most important policies is the Good Neighbor Authority, which since 2001 has increasingly allowed the USFS and Bureau of Land Management to work on land management projects with states, counties and Indian tribes, including those that cross boundaries. Equally important are stewardship contracting and agreement authorities, which open the door to a much wider range of local and rural project partners, such as nonprofits, community based organizations, local governments and rural contractors.

Following Christiansen’s 2018 statement and policy release, the USFS began a major push to establish formal Shared Stewardship Agreements and put them into action. The Agency has now signed agreements with 47 states, the District of Columbia and three territories. Some agreements are with individual states while others are with collective entities, such as the Western Governors’ Association and the states of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The agreements are specific to each state, conditions on the ground and the threats and priorities they face. However, they all focus on a collaborative approach to land management that addresses challenges and opportunities that cross boundaries. Partners share decisions and goal setting, and active management by non-federal partners is encouraged to maximize the scale and impact of the work.

In a May 2019 speech in Silverdale, Wash., Christiansen summarized the reason for the USFS’s commitment to shared stewardship. “The scale of our work has to match the scale of the risks and the problems we face,” she said.

Jacqueline Buchanan is keenly aware of that scale. As the USFS deputy regional forester for the Rocky Mountain Region, she notes that “land management challenges like wildfires, insects and drought recognize no boundaries; they impact all jurisdictions.” Buchanan works closely with the Rocky Mountain Restoration Initiative, a collaboration between the USFS, the National Wild Turkey Federation and more than 40 natural resource leaders from across Colorado. In its first year, the initiative worked with more than 125 partners to improve forest conditions on over 24,000 acres of public and private lands in Southwest Colorado.

NOT JUST A WESTERN ISSUE

In the Eastern U.S., wildfires may be less of a risk, but top of mind are pest outbreaks from invasive moths and hemlock woody adelgid, along with dis- ease outbreaks and climate change impacts. In the rural, heavily forested northwest corner of Massachusetts, the Mohawk Trail Woodlands Partnership is working to create natural resource-based economic development opportunities aligned with the state’s shared stewardship agreement. The Partnership is driven by the residents of Western Franklin and Northern Berkshire Counties, and centered on a shared desire to conserve the region’s forests and rural way of life, while improving the region’s financial sustainability.

This region is among Massachusetts’ most economically distressed, with low wages, population decline and financial instability. However, it has high potential for tourism, sustainable forestry and other development opportunities, says Kurt Gaertner, assistant secretary for environmental policy in the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA). “Part of the reason why we have a shared stewardship agreement with the USFS, why 17 of the 21 communities in the region have now voted to accept the partnership, is they realize the potential benefits of working together on this,” he says.

That’s big in a region that has a degree of skepticism toward government, Gaertner adds. And the vision of the Mohawk Partnership is common to many Eastern U.S. regions facing land conservation, rural economy and forest health challenges. Shared stewardship agreements follow a different model than the Western U.S., since this area has no national forest and very little federal land. For this reason, there is a much greater focus on relationships, investments and technical expertise from other parts of the USFS besides the National Forest System.

Two beneficiaries of the partnership are Patrick and Katie Banks, who worked with a startup accelerator called Lever to win a challenge grant from EEA in order to open a much needed off-the-grid campground, Foolhardy Hill. Whitewater rafting and mountain biking are big here, and there aren’t enough hotels to serve them. The project is built on old logging roads to limit its forest footprint and designed with sustainability in mind for the outdoor community. Elsewhere in the region, conservation easements helped by the Mohawk Partnership allow landowners to protect their forests but also benefit financially from them via tax breaks.

Patrick and Katie Banks opened Foolhardy Hill campground thanks to an entrepreneurial challenge grant from the Massachusetts Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. They worked with a startup accelerator called Lever to develop their pitch — an example of the kind of public/private partnerships that thrive because of shared stewardship. Photo Credit: Eric Korenman

GOOD NEIGHBORS

Like Aaron Kimple, Laura McCarthy is fixated on water. She has no choice. That’s because, as the state forester for New Mexico, she sees the impact of decreasing water flows. And she is alarmed.

“We just can’t do it by ourselves. Nobody can. And I think in some ways, New Mexico is out front. And that’s because we have no money. I call us a state that does things using duct tape and bubble gum,” McCarthy says.

McCarthy supervises 78 people, half of them focused on fire full time. The other half focus on forest land management. She sees the 2-3-2 as particularly important for New Mexico because of water. The water relationship between Colorado and New Mexico is complex, governed by the Rio Grande Compact, an interstate water agreement that regulates how water is allocated between the two states and Texas. But this compact is seriously outdated, created in a time that did not anticipate today’s overwhelming thirst for a limited water supply, as well as climate-driven drought. The three states are currently in litigation before the Supreme Court, arguing over the Rio Grande Compact.

“The way [the water compacts] are structured is kind of counter to any kind of collaboration or cross-boundary work,” McCarthy says. “What’s been really interesting and helpful about the 2-3-2 in the larger stewardship effort, is that it’s like a whole different arena for talking about cross-boundary work that transcends these historical issues and problems with water management.”

Kimple agrees. “One of the amazing things that we’ve found is how strong a barrier that state line can appear to be. All of our policies, all of our regulations, all of our practices, say that we need to be working within our state boundaries. But our watersheds, our fire sheds, none of those respect those boundaries that we draw.”

He describes working with McCarthy as fantastic and stresses the importance of key partners such as the Forest Stewards Guild and The Nature Conservancy, which helped develop the Rio Grande Water Fund, a public-private collaborative that invests in forest restoration projects to ensure pure, clean water in the Rio Grande Watershed.

McCarthy paints a daunting picture of the future, describing a recent conversation with the deputy regional forester about priorities for the year. “We feel like we’re in kind of a losing battle in terms of climate change. And yet, what we hear as we talk to others is that we’re far ahead when it comes to shared stewardship and our planning and what we’ve already accomplished.”

New Mexico State Forester Laura McCarthy at an overlook above the Rio Chama River, a critically important watershed in<br /> New Mexico. In the background is smoke from a managed natural wildfire that is helping reduce forest fuels close to the river. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Laura McCarthy

Is she hopeful? “I think what makes me hopeful is this attitude that I think is shared by many, many New Mexicans, and by pretty much uniformly everybody who’s involved in shared stewardship. The attitude is — well, it may be grim, and the odds are probably against us, but we’re going to give it everything we’ve got.”

A POST-PANDEMIC REUNION

On an early morning in late June, 33 people crammed into trucks, vans and SUVs in Pagosa Springs, Colo., and began the slow climb up Jackson Mountain. They were part of a study tour organized by the San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership, a participant in the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership.

Kimple was there, along with USFS staff, state and local forest leaders, mountain biking advocates, conservation leaders, volunteers, a homeowner’s association and an impact investment expert from Washington, D.C.

As they set off up the mountain, spirits were high for a couple of reasons. First, due to COVID-19, this was the first time many of the participants had seen each other in a year and a half. And secondly, they were witnessing the first steady rainfall in months, offering relief from a brutal, years-long drought that has raised the wildfire risk to alarming levels.

One of those joining was Pagosa Springs resident Austin Rempel, who is American Forests’ senior manager of forest restoration. Rempel notes that 60 to 70% of the traffic in town this summer was from Texas — part of the “Zoom Boom” of people moving to, and often working from, more remote locations. “It’s a place where subdivisions are rapidly expanding into the forest, right alongside USFS land,” Rempel says. “At every stop (during the study tour) we talked about the recreation pressure that the forest is seeing. The number of people in the forest is way higher than it’s ever been.”

The first stop was an active logging site run by The Forest Health Company under a stewardship contract with the USFS that allows a private entity to come in and log. The area is overgrown and at high risk for fire, notes Rempel. “We were standing in a spot that would have been an extremely dangerous place to fight fire, because it was completely overgrown — it would have been one of those uncontrollable blazes near the town.”

The arrangement relieves the USFS of the burden and cost of reducing the fuel load and disposing of excess biomass, while the company benefits from selling the timber it recovers.

This part of Jackson Mountain in Colorado is managed by a private company under a contract with USFS that reduces the fire risk in exchange for the right to sell the timber.<br /> Photo Credit: Michael Remke Photography

At the next stops, they heard from a venture capitalist about bringing innovative finance tools to forest management and looked at how best to manage the explosive growth of mountain biking in the area. They also heard from USFS staff about new opportunities for recreation and resource use, and learned from birdwatchers about the impact of forest management on bird species.

Rempel says this type of event would be much harder without the convening power of a collaborative like 2-3-2 and organizing entities, such as Mountain Studies Institute and San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership. “This is a shining example of the kind of local and regional collaboration that I think they’re trying to enshrine with shared stewardship,” Rempel says. “It’s essentially a diverse group helping the USFS do more, and better work — be it highlighting things that aren’t working; bringing resources like volunteers, outside funding and special expertise from birders, scientists and mountain bike planning teams; or even just constructive engagement and supportive voices.”

THE LONG VIEW

So, what is the long-term outlook for shared stewardship? Two people who have been looking at that question are Courtney Schultz and Chad Kooistra of the Public Lands Policy Group at Colorado State University. Their ongoing five-year study examines the effectiveness of the USFS’s 2018 Shared Stewardship Strategy during its initial implementation. After talking to over 120 people involved in shared stewardship at all levels last year, they found a high level of optimism about the strategy. Those interviewed agreed on the need for partnerships and for work on cross-boundary landscapes to address wild- fires and forest/watershed health.

But they also shared concern about the human and financial resources needed for shared stewardship. Those interviewed wanted to know how to learn from other states and other collaboratives, what works and doesn’t in terms of building relationships. There were questions about how different laws impact cross-boundary work, and how to mix and match funding sources and work with the forest products industry to leverage resources.

“A lot of people talked about shared stewardship as like a state of mind, or an ethos,” Kooistra says. “It was kind of like framing what everybody was already thinking and saying, and giving people something to unite around and just at the very least, start to have that conversation.”

A thunderstorm looms over Jackson Mountain in Colorado. This area is an important part of the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership that balances multiple interests and stakeholders to sustainably manage the landscape. Photo Credit: Michael Remke Photography

As for Aaron Kimple and his long, strange trip from the Rio Grande to Colorado? He’s excited about the prospects for the 2-3-2. The partnership of 24 organizations and government agencies has helped secure over $5 million in project funding along with new Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Funding from the USFS that will likely bring in around $3 to 4 million per year. They have worked with partners to treat over 10,000 acres through prescribed fire and build wider acceptance of its importance to forest ecology and wildfire reduction. They have also created new networks for timber suppliers and elevated local alliances.

He’s also looking at the future and his hopes for his 11-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter. “We get out on the landscape and play with our kids, and they get out on the rivers, they hike and camp in the forest, they love all these resources. And to me, what I hope for them is to carry a love of this place, a love of what it offers.”

Lee Poston serves as a communications advisor and writes from University Park, Md.

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Heat is common in the desert city of Phoenix. But the problem had become so severe, largely because of climate change, that council members knew they needed to take action. And they knew trees should be part of the solution, given the power of trees to cool down neighborhoods by providing shade.

They also knew that they needed to plant most of the trees in their underserved communities — where the population is mainly low-income Black and Brown people. In Phoenix, as is in most United States cities, trees are sparse in these communities.

In April, the Phoenix City Council became the first local government entity in the U.S. to vote to create a Tree Equity program. Simply put, Tree Equity is about ensuring that all people benefit from everything trees do, like provide shade, filter the air (which is especially important in Phoenix, ranked in 2020 as having the seventh worst air quality in the country) and create opportunities for tree care jobs.

“Trees are a key component of Phoenix’s heat mitigation work and offer a multitude of benefits,” said Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego. “Situated in the Sonoran Desert, it is crucial that expansion of our tree canopy prioritizes heat-vulnerable neighborhoods and aligns with our water conservation efforts. We are proud to partner with American Forests to implement data-driven, equitable tree planting that is appropriate for our unique environment.”

American Forests is working with Phoenix to create its Tree Equity program, which the council funded at $1.5 million. So is the Phoenix Metro Urban Forestry Roundtable, a coalition of more than 40 entities that is led by American Forests, the Arizona Sustainability Alliance and the City of Phoenix.

These two maps represent the Tree Equity Scores by neighborhood for Phoenix in Maricopa County and Tuscon in Pima County.

Greener areas have a higher Tree Equity Score, and less green/orange areas have a lower score.

Just two hours south of Phoenix, plans to create Tree Equity also are taking shape. Tree Equity Score, developed by American Forests, is now the primary tool used by the City of Tucson to make decisions on where and how much to invest in trees and other green infrastructure. The tool generates Tree Equity scores for urbanized neighborhoods in the U.S. Each score is an indicator of whether the neighborhood has enough trees so all people experience the health, economic and other benefits that trees provide. Tucson, Ariz., is the first city in the U.S. to factor the scores into its decision making.

“We will not have a city if we don’t deal with climate change and if we don’t apply an equity lens when thinking about it,” says Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, noting that a map of heat islands in her city is the same as a map of low-income com- munities. “Communities of color and low-income communities are on the frontline of climate change. As we address climate change, we need to acknowledge historical and systemic inequities and center the voices of frontline communities.”

Under the leadership of Mayor Romero, the city has set a goal of planting 1 million trees by 2030, which would take its tree canopy from 8% to 15%. The trees will be funded, in part, through a fee charged for each gallon of water used in the city. City leaders hope that trees will help keep the desert city cool and absorb water from heavy storms. The city will focus on planting the right kinds of trees (e.g., drought-resistant trees) in the right places — most notably, underserved communities.

With leadership from cities like Tucson and Phoenix, America is well on its way to being a country with Tree Equity from coast to coast.

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So, when he found out that American Forests was helping conduct a comprehensive study of the problem — and detailed solutions for fixing it — he saw a chance to do something. His family foundation, the Paul and June Rossetti Foundation, helped fund the revealing study and the solutions guide for policymakers.

The study, co-authored by 18 scientists and forestry professionals, found that U.S. nurseries would have to more than double their seedling production to realize even half of the potential of forests to fight climate change, create jobs and recover from increasingly extreme wildfires. The March 2021 study was the most comprehensive yet to examine the barriers nurseries face to ramping up.

The scope of the foundation’s impact would have surprised Rossetti four years ago, when he left the world of private equity to create a small foundation to address climate change. He and his wife, June, and their three daughters homed in on supporting natural solutions, such as reforestation and sustainable agriculture. The Rossettis wanted to keep their work close to home, funding local and state efforts, including a project mapping all natural, climate-related opportunities in their home state of Colorado.

“Being in Colorado, we wanted to work in areas relevant to our community, where we can know the people have got to fund these kinds of things because institutional capital doesn’t do that,” Rossetti says.

But the need for a nationwide study of the reforestation pipeline prompted the Rossettis to seriously broaden the foundation’s reach. “I think the family foundations have got to fund these kinds of things because institutional capital doesn’t do that,” Rossetti says.

Up next for the foundation: working with American Forests and others to devise ways of driving private investment into building nursery capacity and scaling up reforestation to help mitigate climate change.

“Tackling climate change will require large-scale and broad-based action. But we won’t be successful if we don’t fully understand the barriers and opportunities in front of us,” says Eric Sprague, vice president of forest restoration for American Forests. “Investments like the one from the Paul and June Rossetti Foundation are important to providing that clarity and to scaling the funding and policies to meet the moment.”

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