Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today awarded more than $790,000 in federal cost-share grants to 12 organizations for use with urban and community forestry projects nationwide.
"These grants will enhance our understanding of the nation's urban forest resources by developing useful products," said Johanns. "This research will help us to continue working hand in hand with communities to improve our urban forests and all they bring to our nation's communities."
The grant recipients will use the money to develop products, such as a database for satellite imagery of urban forest canopy, a guidebook on how to start and run a youth tree care program, urban forestry management reports for public works managers, software, research findings, and other educational modules.
The $791,797 in funds will be matched by recipient organizations that will contribute an additional $834,056. The projects include an assessment of invasive exotic plants in urban forests, studying mature tree response to hurricane-related flooding in Northern Gulf Coast communities, and conducting five regional urban trees clean air conferences.
Recipients of the 2006 cost-share grants were selected in a competitive process, based on criteria developed by the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council (NUCFAC). NUCFAC reviewed the proposals and made its recommendations to the USDA Forest Service, which awarded the grants.
The 12 recipients are: Friends of the Urban Forest (San Francisco, Calif.); Soundprint Media Center, Inc. (Laurel, Md.); University of Georgia's Center for Urban Agriculture (Griffin, Ga.); American Public Works Association (Kansas City, Mo); Norwalk Tree Alliance, Inc. (Norwalk, Conn.); University of Kentucky (Lexington, Ky.); West Virginia University (Morgantown, W.Va.); Louisiana State University Agricultural Center (Baton Rouge, La.); University of Georgia (Athens, Ga.); California ReLeaf (Davis, Calif.); National Arbor Day Foundation (Lincoln, Neb.); and Sacramento Tree Foundation (Sacramento, Calif.).
Previous grants resulted in developing community forest plans, methods for identifying the costs and benefits of trees in communities, ways to conserve energy, techniques for communities to care for their forests, and educational programs to promote the importance of urban and community forestry.
Since NUCFAC's establishment under the 1990 Farm Bill, the Forest Service funded 162 competitive cost-share projects recommended by NUCFAC that promote urban and community forestry nationwide. The 15-member council advises the Secretary on the care and management of trees, forests and related natural resources in urban and community settings. NUCFAC members include representatives from communities, universities, non-profit forestry and conservation citizen organizations, landscape and design consultants, the forest product or nursery industry, professional renewable natural resource organizations, and USDA. Members of NUCFAC serve without compensation and dedicate approximately 100 hours each year.
For more information, visit http://www.treelink.org/nucfac/.US Department of Agriculture
