Gov. Tony Evers and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) today announced the Urban Forestry (UF) Grant Program recipients for the 2025 grant year. In addition to helping fund projects consistent with state and national goals for increasing the urban forest canopy, reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere, and improving the quality of life and public health of communities, the UF Grant Program will help advance goals outlined in Gov. Evers’ Trillion Trees Pledge commitment, which includes planting 1 million trees in urban areas by the end of 2030.
“Our state forests and green spaces are vital to lowering the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, providing outdoor recreational opportunities and protection from the summer heat, preserving local wildlife habitats, and ultimately uplifting our statewide economy,” said Gov. Evers. “We are confident that with help from our state and federal partners, these Urban Forestry grants will help bolster Wisconsin’s forestry industry and protect our state’s ecosystems so that we leave our future generations with a better world than the one we inherited.”
Through the UF Grant Program, nearly $630,000, which includes $70,000 in federal funding, will be awarded to 43 applicants, with awards ranging from $1,824 to $25,000 to support new, innovative projects to develop sustainable urban and community forestry programs. Two types of competitive grants were available for this application cycle, including regular and startup grants. Regular grants award up to $25,000 to support new, innovative projects to develop sustainable urban and community forestry programs. Startup grants are simplified grants that award up to $5,000 to communities that want to start or restart an urban forestry program.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service, urban forests come in many different shapes and sizes, including urban parks, street trees, landscaped boulevards, gardens, river and coastal promenades, greenways, river corridors, wetlands, nature preserves, shelter belts of trees, and working trees at former industrial sites. Encompassing trees on both public and private property, urban forests are critical to the state’s economy, contributing nearly $1.6 billion to the economy and supporting roughly 17,000 jobs. Additionally, urban tree canopies provide benefits such as local heat mitigation, removal of pollutants from the air, water and soil, and improving mental health.
Priorities for the 2025 grant cycle include but are not limited to projects that:
- Increase the ability of local municipal partners to expand their urban forestry program;
- Increase the ability of local partners to provide ongoing urban forestry funding, services and markets;
- Benefit multiple communities; and
- Put existing inventories of urban trees to use.
The list of selected grant recipients is available here.
In 2021, Gov. Evers committed to working with public, private, and non-governmental partners to conserve 125,000 acres of forest land and plant 75 million trees by the end of 2030 as a part of the Trillion Trees Pledge. As of April 2024, Wisconsin has planted more than 32 million trees, representing over 40 percent of the state’s original tree-planting goal. Therefore, in April, Gov. Evers increased the state’s Trillion Trees Pledge from a goal of planting 75 million trees to planting 100 million trees by the end of 2030. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, in one year, a mature tree can store and exchange approximately 48 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, meaning once fully mature, the trees planted through the state’s goal will enable the storage and exchange of a total of 4.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
In addition, in September, Gov. Evers and the DNR announced that 13 UF grant recipients received nearly $4 million in funding through the Biden-Harris Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for projects such as removing hazardous trees, increasing the forest canopy through planting, supporting urban forestry workforce development, and using trees to reduce urban heat. The UF IRA Grant program uses federal funds from the USDA Forest Service to support projects that positively impact trees and people within disadvantaged communities in Wisconsin.
Finally, the 2023-25 budget signed by Gov. Evers made several investments in projects across the state that support the conservation and preservation of the state’s vast and valuable natural resources, including more than $5.6 million for state forests, parks, and riverway road maintenance and development, $350,000 over the biennium to increase funding for urban forestry grants, $400,000 for county forest administrator grants, and $100,000 for county sustainable forestry grants.