Investing in natural capital. (Clippings).

More than 800 urban foresters, citizen activists, and other conservation professionals traded techniques and suggestions for "Investing in Natural Capital" during AMERICAN FORESTS' 2001 National Urban Forest Conference in Washington, DC.

AMERICAN FORESTS launched the four-day event with a news conference to unveil the results of a nationwide analysis that shows an estimated 634,407,719 trees are missing from America's urban areas due to development and other factors. "Gray to Green: Reversing the National Urban Tree Deficit" uses a 'gray to green scale" to analyze communities' tree cover.

AMERICAN FORESTS conducted the first gray to green scale in Washington, DC, using high-resolution satellite imagery to document the prevalence of gray infrastructure (sidewalks, parking lots, buildings) in comparison to "green infrastructure" (trees and vegetation). A color-coded map provides a clear view of the area's tree cover, showing local leaders which neighborhoods have sufficient tree cover and which need trees.

The satellite images show DC has an average tree canopy of 30 percent-- 10 percent below AMERICAN FORESTS' recommended city average of 40 percent. To increase tree cover just 5 percent, the District would need to plant 551,040 trees.

"Most people will be amazed to see more than 634 million trees are missing from America's cities," said Gary Moll, vice president of AMERICAN FORESTS, "But it reinforces something AMERICAN FORESTS has documented for years: Our cities are paying a high price for the reduction of tree canopy. As trees are lost, so too are the environmental and economic benefits they provide relative to reducing stormwater runoff, air pollution, and energy usage.

"The good news," Moll added, "is that cities can now use high-resolution imagery to see almost every tree in every neighborhood and determine where and how tree canopies can be increased in their communities."

Moll was joined at the news conference by Washington mayor Anthony Williams; former Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman, a member of AMERICAN FORESTS' Board of Directors; Sheila Hogan, executive director of the Casey Trees Endowment Fund; and John Hazel of the U.S. Forest Service.

Using the venue in Washington, DC, as a springboard to focus on public policy, several keynote speakers from the U.S. Congress, as well as the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, offered opinions on the importance of our urban and community forests. Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon opened the conference by addressing the relationship between federal policies and urban forests. Both sit on congressional environmental committees and have been vocal advocates for these issues.

Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia, a proponent of urban forests and member of the House Appropriations Committee, spoke of the need for planning green space into developing urban landscapes. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth addressed the agency's well-grounded interests in the urban forests of America.

In his speech, Sen. Wyden, chair of the Forests and Public Land Management Subcommittee, stressed finding ways to bring all stakeholders together to find creative solutions to national forest policies for both rural and urban forests.

"New strategies have to interweave social and economic, as well as environmental, considerations in order to be sustainable... The pressures placed on the ecology of the National Forest system directly relate to your ability to plan and implement for a healthy urban forest," Wyden said.

"The management of national forests for pests, disease, and fire danger dictates, in part, the problems urban forests face by presenting additional challenges to those communities that rely on those trees for a certain quality of life."

Wyden also exhorted attendees to participate in solutions that were both creative and "homegrown."

Conference-goers attended an array of workshops and seminars aimed at offering creative ways to keep trees on the public agenda. The sessions ranged from creating public policy and protecting wildlife habitat to air quality and urban forestry in classrooms. Highlights included innovative construction management practices from other countries, research on the social benefits of trees, a journalists' roundtable featuring Ray Suarez from PBS's Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and numerous tours of the city.

The Global ReLeaf banquet, which closed the conference, featured an awards ceremony honoring the tree-planting and conservation efforts of 1984 Olympic gold medal skier Debbie Armstrong, the spokesperson for AMERICAN FORESTS' Global ReLeaf Sarajevo campaign. Also honored: the U.S. Forest Service, Eddie Bauer, Green Mountain Energy, Bruce Hardwood Floors, Wal-Mart, Scotts, The VFW Foundation, The Davey Tree Expert Company, and Exxon-Mobile.

The biennial conference was sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service, Casey Trees Endowment Fund, Eddie Bauer, The Davey Tree Expert Company, ESRI, Pictometry, and O'Doul's.