Credit: Leah Bauer, USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station, Bugwood.org
The WDNR received $175,000 from the USDA Forest Service, Forest Health & Resilience funds, to assist communities in response to the catastrophic loss of urban tree canopy due to EAB. The $175,000 will be administered through the competitive State Urban Forestry Grants program and sub-awarded to cities, villages, towns, counties, tribes and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Projects funded with the Forest Health & Resilience funds will focus on EAB response on public lands, including ash tree removals and replacements. EAB treatment will not be funded with these dollars. These projects will further the Forest Service National Priorities to ‘protect forests from threats’ and ‘enhance public benefits from trees and forests’, and make Wisconsin communities safer, healthier and happier places to live, work and play.
Check out the six upcoming webinars/webinar series listed below. Especially during this time of social distancing, webinars are a great training opportunity. Some of them even offer ISA CEUs when watched live (recordings of past webinars are also available but do not offer CEUs).
Wisconsin Community Tree Management Institute (CTMI) is a unique training experience designed for municipal staff with tree management responsibilities but without a strong background in urban forestry. The program is ideal for staff who spend just part of their time dealing with trees. Conversely, those with a background in urban forestry but new to management, will also find it useful. CTMI consists of approximately 38 instruction hours and requires students to complete an out-of-classroom project.
The history of the Wisconsin DNR Urban Forestry program is closely tied to the history of urban forestry in the United States. Although the term ‘urban forestry’ did not come into use until 1965, the concept of an integrated approach to the management of the urban forest ecosystem began to take shape as early as the 1930s. The devastation caused by diseases such Dutch elm disease, phloem necrosis, and oak wilt was a driving force in the development of the field of urban forestry. The term ‘urban forestry’ was first used in 1965 at the University of Toronto to describe a graduate student’s research on the successes and failures of municipal tree planting projects in Toronto. The term was quickly adopted in the United States, where urban forestry had already begun to grow into a national movement. (Source: Mark Johnston, “A Brief History of Urban Forestry in the United States,” Arboricultural Journal 1996, Vol. 20, pp. 257-278.)
The Urban Forestry Team provides guidance, training, information, funding and professional connection opportunities to municipal foresters and other professionals to achieve sustainable urban forestry management. In a (hickory) nutshell, our work falls into the following five categories:
“What is it about this place?” I wondered. “Why does this city feel so harsh, so disheartening?”