pesticide use in forests, respectively. Maine’s Project Canopy provides assistance grants to state, county, and municipal governments as well as educational institutions and non-profit organizations for developing and implementing community forestry projects and programs. A number of programs also tackle forest health and tree cover in urban areas and communities. New York’s Urban & Community Forestry Program Cost Share Grants, for example, aim to improve the health of urban and community forests and to increase the sustainability of forestry programs. This program, in particular, is a reimbursement grant program that focuses on partnerships, volunteers, community groups, professionals, and outreach and education because these are components of strong and sustainable community forestry programs. Examples of projects that are eligible for this funding include tree inventories, management plans, tree planting, maintenance, and education programming for those who care for community trees.
4.3.2.3 Supporting forest plans
Another aspect of working forests that some of these programs tackle directly is the development of forest management plans.
• Urban and community forest health. The USFS Forest Health Protection Grants, Special Technology Development Program (STDP) is one example of a program in this area that differs from the rest. While forest management plans are generally straightforward, this program applies research results and cutting-edge technologies to develop field operation methods that improve the ability of field specialists to restore and protect America’s forests. • Community and neighborhood “livability”. In addition, while many of the programs in this category target woodlands, another aspect of forest cover and working lands is the need to create pleasant, livable places for residents to live. The Chesapeake Bay Trust, for example, provides the Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns program, which supports design projects, financing strategies, and/or implementation of green street projects. This program also supports white papers on innovative ideas for green infrastructure and charrettes to plan and vision a green street project with developers, citizens, planners, and other stakeholders. The Massachusetts Gateway City Parks Program is another program that funds the creation and restoration of parks and recreational facilities in underserved urban neighborhoods. 4.3.3 Review of Funding/Program Organizations As in other categories, in the working forests and woodlands category, state programs dominate in numbers for producers/businesses (n=72) and supporting institutions (n=14), just as public programs (n=77) dominate over private programs (n=32). Public-private partnerships are still dominant for regional activities. Of these regional partnership programs, several are specifically geared towards tree farms. The American Forest Foundation’s American Tree Farm System (ATFS) Certification is a certification system that works through a number of public and private subsidiary organizations to encourage landowners to improve the sustainability and management of forests on private lands. • The New York Audubon Society works as one such subsidiary of the American Forest Foundation and offers a tree farm program of their own. The aim of this program is to promote the growth of renewable forest resources on private lands in New York State while protecting environmental benefits and increasing public understanding of all benefits of productive forestry. • The New Hampshire Division of Forested Lands is another subsidiary implementing the American Tree Farm System (ATFS) standards. In New Hampshire, this Tree Farm Program is operated by volunteers through the New Hampshire Tree Farm Executive Committee and has since 1950.
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