USDA-FS-UCF-010-2024: Enhancing Urban Forests and Community Resilience

Urban forests provide trees for people, where they live, work, and play. These natural resources, on public and private property, contribute to quality of life, support community development, green infrastructure, and provide a wealth of benefits to cities and towns. The USDA Forest Service Urban & Community Forestry (U&CF) Program is the only dedicated urban forest program in the federal government. It is a technical, financial, and educational assistance program that delivers nature-based solutions to more than 84 percent of Americans. The program works to restore, sustain, and manage more than 140 million acres of urban and community forest lands for the benefit of communities across the United States and its Territories. Healthy urban & community forests and green infrastructure are not only critical to all our nation’s forests, but research and studies have also shown that our urban and community forests are essential to the economic, environmental, physical, and mental well-being of our citizens.

According to the National Ten Year Urban and Community Forestry Action Plan (2016-2026), (Action Plan) urban and community stewardship has made progress over the last decade to address the health of urban and community forests. For example, sixty (60%) percent of cities are utilizing new and emerging tools to assist propagation, planting, management, maintenance, and stewardship.

CATEGORY:  Urban and Community Forestry Climate-Resilient Tree Nurseries

This year’s category addresses components of Goal 4 and Goal 5 in the Ten-Year Action Plan:

Goal 4 Strategy A: Action 1: Increase the biodiversity, health, and resilience of trees in urban and community forests.

Goal 5 Strategy A: Support the use of more locally grown, regionally adapted, insect and pest-resistant, and diverse native or site-appropriate species. Action 1: Facilitate funding to promote planting higher quality trees in urban forests with less emphasis on the quantity of trees planted (such as the published International Society of Arboriculture guidelines).

In order to address these goals and strategies we need to know what urban tree species are available for purchase that are suitable for urban conditions and potentially withstand climate change impacts.

The Forest Service’s National Reforestation, Nursery, and Genetic Resource unit (RNGR) nursery directory on https://rngr.net is the most comprehensive directory of forestry and conservation nurseries in the United States. The unit is currently updating their national database of tree nurseries to be more user-friendly by allowing for additional details and more accurate searching. The directory is also expanding to include suppliers of products and services from seed to out planting. Soon, there will also be a marketplace to facilitate supply/demand.

The RNGR nursery directory currently does not identify nurseries that address trees suitable for urban or developed environments or of those tree species, which may be resistant to climate change impacts such as, extreme heat, extreme temperature variations, pests, flooding, salt intrusion, high wind events, increased fire events, and ice storms to name a few.

The Forest Service is seeking an entity to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the existing RNGR nursery inventory. This may include additional inventories to identify new nurseries that can provide suitable urban and community forestry nursery stock, document urban tree species availability and / or public requests for desired suitable tree species from urban cities and communities across the country and U.S. Territories.

Applicants are to follow the existing inventory template that the Forest Service RNGR unit has established but may introduce key components that are unique to urban and community forests. This may include specific desired tree characteristics, (i.e., native species or pest resistant species), innovative technologies, and methodologies to make it easier for a public search of the database.

Nurseries are public and private enterprises that are responsive to consumer demand, so the focus of this assessment is to develop a comprehensive list of tree species that are best suited to the geography, climate, and culture of urban and community forests across the country.

Required Registration in System for Award Management (SAM): Please allow at least two (2) weeks to apply or renew this registration. All prospective awardees must be registered in SAM https://sam.gov/content/home