Revitalizing Baltimore

Bringing Forestry to the people through collaborative stewardship


Description: Revitalizing Baltimore (RB) is a regional partnership
strengthening community-based efforts to improve urban natural
resources supported by the USDA Forest Service and managed by the
Parks & People Foundation in cooperation with the Maryland State
Forester. This national model for community forestry and watershed
organizing equips people to care for natural resources and to employ these resources to revitalize their neighborhoods. Over the last eight years, Revitalizing Baltimore has focused its efforts along stream valleys and in neighborhoods with significant tree deficits helping green 45 neighborhoods by planting more than 17,300 trees and riparian plants in over 500 projects involving more than 3,000 volunteers annually, and providing stewardship education to over 10,700 students and 600 adults. RB's twenty partnering organizations include the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Forest Service, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, several nonprofit organizations, four watershed associations, businesses, and academic institutions. RB actively reaches out to culturally diverse communities to help residents plant trees along streets and streams, transform vacant lots to community green space, restore parks and schoolyards, and support youth education and adult training to foster stewardship of natural resources.

Key Issues: Baltimore suffers from significant property abandonment as a result of suburban sprawl and significant disparity in green spaces and tree canopy among neighborhoods with varying social and economic conditions. Tree canopy ranges from as low as 1 percent to as high as 65 percent, averaging about 20 percent. RB's guiding principals include:

· Applying ecosystem management concepts by organizing community forestry on a watershed basis.

· Bringing the regional watershed and neighborhood scales together through community stewardship actions to improve natural resources, focusing on urban forest health and water quality.

· Sustaining a process for community and governmental collaboration to achieve urban ecological restoration that is supportive of neighborhood revitalization.

· Strengthening urban natural resource stewardship through education, communication, and opportunities for community action.

· Organizing a community-based process supportive of institutional change aimed at better management of urban natural resources and encouraging a public commitment of financial resources.

· Improving the effectiveness of watershed-based community organizations to mobilize citizens for natural resource action.

Accomplishments:

Grants - Funded ten priority projects ranging from $1,500 to $42,400, targeting resources to community forestry and reducing funding for watershed organizing and stewardship education. RB has sustained its three for one cash and volunteer labor match record.

Community Forestry - Supported community forestry activities among RB partners and neighborhood groups through community organizing, technical assistance, volunteer training, and logistical support. This resulted in planting 2002 street trees, more than doubling last year's production, by effectively implementing the Title VIII and Inner City grants. We also maintained 4200 street trees and 12,000 riparian plants all a part of 125 projects involving 3,200 volunteers who logged 8,100 work hours. We expanded the successful demonstration project at Franklin Square Elementary School (Inner City grant) to 6 other city schools needing asphalt removed and restoring schoolyard habitats. We are expanding the pilot Comprehensive Community Forestry Revitalization Strategy, including green infrastructure surveys, to six additional neighborhoods, including integration of sanitation, waste and energy recycling, and Norway Rat reduction.

Watersheds - Helped establish a City-County Watershed Cooperation Agreement which will institutionalize collaboration among RB partners to strengthen community forestry and water quality efforts in four regional watersheds - Gwynns Falls, Jones Falls, Herring Run, and Direct Harbor. Watershed associations continued to focus on community organizing by attracted over 10,000 people to various riparian festivals and eliminating municipal sewage from urban streams within city parks and open space.

Education - Supported natural resource stewardship education and training by partnering with the Cooperative Extension Service to offer a series of 9 classes over a three month period. Also continued to work with Irvine's Natural Connections program that reaches 1,700 youth with environmental education programs. KidsGrow program engaged 200 elementary and middle school students in stewardship activities in after-school programs and summer day camps. KidsGrow's new partnership with the National Aquarium has created Bay Grass Grow Out Stations maintained by school students.

Technology Transfer - Strengthened urban forestry with the Baltimore Urban Forest Assessment project (Title VIII) and the RB Technical Committee with the Baltimore Ecosystem Study and USFS Research collaboration. Worked with American Forest to present several workshops about community forestry, water quality and phytoremediation resulting in several additional organizations joining RB, including community development corporations and businesses. Worked with the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance to incorporate environmental data, including urban forest health, in a Vital Signs for Baltimore Neighborhoods report. Published the Guide to Neighborhood Greening, a technical manual for community groups about comprehensive community forestry project implementation.

Future Direction:

· Respond to Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley's priority request to integrate crime reduction, sanitation improvement, and park restoration with RB's community forestry and watershed restoration goals.

· Enhance transferable community forestry models with an entrepreneurial approach engaging in the entire lifecycle of trees and supporting plants, focusing on health and maintenance, including water infiltration, invasive removal and disease reduction, and tightly integrating research and training with demonstration projects.

· Expand the number and type of organizations (i.e., businesses and community development corporations) engaged in revitalizing communities by forestry activities.

· Develop a campaign with business partners to confront crime and grime by greening urban neighborhoods, strengthen stewardship programs, and continuing to reach out to minority groups and engaging youth as leaders.

· Continue to implement green infrastructure surveys to improve community stewardship readiness and to implement community forestry to affect urban environmental issues such as brownfields, water and air quality, energy conservation, and habitat conservation and test effectiveness through storm drain monitoring.

· Use the Baltimore Urban Forest Assessment to guide investment of restoration resources to improve the state of the social ecology and to encourage development of a comprehensive greenspace plan, policies, and programs.

· Further develop a collaborative technology transfer plan with like-minded community organizations in Boston, New Haven, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Seattle, better using the Web to facilitate technology transfer, program development, and communications.

Kathryn Maloney, Director
USDA Forest Service, NA
11 Campus Blvd., Suite 200
Newtown Square, PA 19703
610-557-4103 (4177 fax)
kmaloney@fs.fed.us
na.fs.fed.us

Mike Galvin, UCF Supervisor
Maryland DNR Forest Service
580 Taylor Ave.
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-260-8507 (8595 fax)
mgalvin@dnr.state.md.us
www.dnr.state.md.us