The Boulder County Office of Sustainability, Climate Action, and Resilience (OSCAR) has conducted extensive analysis of climate change trends and has determined that communities within the county will face increasing risks due to extreme heat and other global warming related impacts.
One of the ways our communities can prepare for these changing climatic conditions is to enhance urban landscapes in ways that aid in buffering these extremes. Expanding urban forests has been demonstrated to be one of the most beneficial of these nature-based climate solutions. While local municipalities have made significant investments in the care and maintenance of trees on public lands and right of ways, this often represents less than 30% of the urban landscape area that could be utilized for enhancing this natural infrastructure.
To date, there has not been a coordinated effort to develop and support expanding urban forests on private lands and lands owned or controlled by other institutions such as school districts. This solicitation is intended to initiate the development of an ongoing community-based infrastructure to develop and maintain greater urban forest activity on lands outside the direct ownership or control of local municipalities. At the same time, it is intended to create a coordinated approach to urban forest development and maintenance that enhances the collaboration between public and non-public (residential, commercial, institutional) urban forest owners and managers.
The overall goal of this project is to increase the coverage and ecological health of urban forests in ways that enhance social, economic and environmental resilience of communities within the county, particularly in historically under-served/under-resourced areas and areas with high vulnerability to climate change impacts.
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