(Seattle, WA, More than 500,001, Green Seattle Partnership) Project Summary The Green Seattle Partnership is a collaboration between the City of Seattle, Cascade Land Conservancy and our residents to restore 2,500 acres of forested parkland by 2025. These precious areas are failing as existing trees reach the end of their natural life and invasive plants have choked out the next generation of trees. Our grand deciduous trees and forested parklands have quietly helped Seattle grow into one of America s most livable cities. Now, Seattle trees and parks need help. Of the 3,200 acres of forested parkland, 2,500 acres are heavily infested with English ivy, Himalayan blackberry and other invasive plants. Seattle s deciduous trees big leaf maple and red alder are dying of old age, while native evergreens cannot reseed or compete with the invasive plants. The uniqueness and functionality of Seattle s forested parklands is being lost to a blanket of strangling weeds. Without a massive, coordinated community effort, 7 out of 10 trees in these natural areas will be dead within twenty years. In response to this community need and building on the existing and ongoing work of committed volunteers, the City of Seattle and the Cascade Land Conservancy launched The Green Seattle Partnership in 2004. The Partnership is a 20-year effort to restore 2,500 acres of Seattle s forested parks, build community support for long-term park stewardship and pass on a legacy of community service to future generations. By mobilizing Seattle residents to donate 2 million volunteer hours and plant 200,000 trees by 2025, the Green Seattle Partnership will create healthier and more livable communities and pass on a legacy of community service to future generations. Outcomes Since the program s inception, over 385 acres have entered restoration with the support of over 242,000 hours of community volunteer support. The Cascade Land Conservancy has leveraged the model created with this program to launch similar programs in other cities in the region: Green Kirkland Partnership (2005), Green Tacoma Partnership (2006) and thegreen Redmond Partnership (2008). The Green Seattle Partnership is charting a course to a more livable community that cities around the country can follow.
Project Description The Challenge Seattle s forest stands remnants of a once vast forest that covered the entire Puget Sound region are in trouble. After 150 years of logging, view clearing and passive management, these remnant forests are failing. Most of the trees are nearing the end of their natural lives. At the same time, invasive plants, including English ivy, Himalayan blackberry, Scot s broom and knotweed have choked out the seedlings that would replace today s forest. If no action is taken, within 20 years 70% of Seattle s forested parklands will be ecological dead zones where invasive plants predominate, where trees are dead or dying, and where native wildlife habitat is gone. Native trees, especially the conifers so important to Seattle, have little success reproducing in Seattle s parks. Several factors contribute to the problem. The loss of forested areas due to logging and development left a limited seed source for native trees, especially conifers. Invasive plants reduce native tree regeneration by out-competing or smothering seedlings. As a result of these changes, urban forest stands have lost native trees, shrubs, and herbaceous species and no longer have a rich diversity of plants or habitat to support urban wildlife. In an undisturbed natural system, the process of forest succession prepares the forest for a second colonization by longer-lived (300 to 800 years) conifers like Douglas fir and Western red cedar. Over time, a typical Pacific Northwest climax forest (Douglas fir, Western red cedar and ultimately Grand fir and Western hemlock) re-establishes itself. In the urban setting, these forests require active restoration and ongoing maintenance to approach this level of health and function.
While committed volunteers and a small crew from the Parks department had been working hard for many years to tackle this enormous challenge, a more coordinated effort that supported and vastly expanded the existing volunteer network was needed. In 2004, Mayor Nickels asked the Cascade Land Conservancy to team up with the City of Seattle to help make the vision of thriving forested parkland a reality. The resulting Green Seattle Partnership s goal is to improve quality of life in Seattle by restoring these precious natural areas in the midst of our city. Trees add much more to an urban landscape than a spot of green on the horizon. A sustainable, mature tree canopy, improves health, increases sense of community, reduces crime, and slows traffic while also decreasing storm water runoff, improving air and water quality, and absorbing global warming pollution. Our Innovative Planning Approach Recognizing the complexity and interdependence of all the elements required to create a successful program, a sophisticated planning framework was needed. We selected a modified Balanced Scorecard method to plan our strategy. A widely used business tool, the scorecard balances objectives and measures across all areas of work necessary to achieve the overall outcome of restoring 2,500 acres by 2025. The scorecard helps organizations tie their objectives to a set of metrics that can be used to measure success. With these metrics, management can track the success of any activity over the 20-year course of the project and adapt the program as needed. Each Green Seattle Partnership objective is designed to reach its desired outcome and is outlined in a Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map. The objectives shown in the strategy map form the backbone of the program and are divided into three categories that are the basic elements of the plan: 1. Field work 2. Resources 3. Community
The strategy map shows the relationships among these elements. For example, with the strategy map we can see under the Community element of the plan how the action of creating broad community awareness of a problem will inspire volunteerism in the neighborhood, which in time will help remove ivy from a park. Looking at the complete picture through the strategy map allows us to coordinate efforts across various activities so that they are mutually supportive. Project Goals and Objectives Field Work Goal: Restore 2,500 acres of forested parklands in Seattle through a comprehensive program of invasive species removal, new native plantings and long-term monitoring and stewardship. Objectives: Evaluate city-wide forest stand conditions Prioritize among 300 Seattle park properties and restoration sites within these parks Implement restoration in four phases: (1) removing invasive plants, (2) hand weeding and planting native shrubs and trees, (3) watering and mulching native plants and (4) monitoring Maintain restored parks over the long-term Resources Goal: Establish financial and volunteer resources to provide long-term maintenance and ensure sustainability of our forested parks.
Objectives: Increase volunteer capacity to 100,000 hours donated per year by 2009 Restore parks by deploying paid restoration work crews such as EarthCorps and Seattle Conservation Corps, which also provide youth and adults with job-training Raise $3 million in private funding by 2009 and leverage $49 million in public funding Community Goal: Mobilize an informed and active community around forest restoration and stewardship. Objectives: Create broad support for the Partnership through media coverage, a web site and collaboration with our community partners to educate and involve their members Demonstrate appreciation for volunteers and seek their input into our work plan Engage community organizations, youth groups and businesses in restoration Train Forest Stewards to host restoration work parties and coordinate volunteers (train 60 active Stewards by 2009) Encourage businesses to contribute to support Partnership efforts by providing cash donations, in-kind contributions and employee volunteers Field Work Our urban forests are highly fragmented, highly disturbed and heavily invaded. Traditional forest analysis methods and management tools do not adequately address the problems of urban forest landscapes. Over the past 10 years, the City and nonprofit partners such as Seattle Urban Nature have developed new analytical tools for forest restoration in the Seattle area. Given the wide variation we developed a cutting edge approach, called the Tree-iage model, to assess conditions based on tree composition (value) and invasive species cover (threat). Acres requiring restoration were assessed and assigned to one of the categories below. The Partnership has developed Best Management Practices (BMPs) to maximize ecological benefits by creating a high-quality, high-function forest once restoration is complete. One of the unique BMPs developed by the Partnership is a 4-phase approach to restoration field work. This approach, developed in the last decade, represents the City of Seattle s Parks Department s most successful overall restoration technique. It recognizes that it takes several years to restore a site, and that restoration activities fall into four major categories:
Phase 1. Invasive Plant Removal Specific invasive plant removal techniques will vary by species. In areas with high levels of invasive plant coverage, it may take more than a year to complete the initial removal. Many of these areas will require paid crews or special equipment. These sites will also require a large investment of both funding and community volunteers to ensure restoration. Phase 2. Planting and Secondary Invasive Removal Before planting, a second round of invasive removal is conducted. Most phase 2 planting projects are appropriate for community volunteers. Phase 3. Plant Establishment This phase repeats invasive removal and includes plant establishment. As needed, sites are weeded, mulched and watered. Sites may stay in Phase 3 for up to 3 years. Phase 4. Long-term Monitoring and Maintenance The final phase is long-term site stewardship, including monitoring by paid crews and volunteers to provide information for long-term site maintenance. Monitoring may be as simple as neighborhood volunteers patrolling park trails to find invasive plants and hosting small monthly or quarterly work parties. Resources The Partnership s overall resource development goal is to inspire community participation and financial support so that sufficient resources are available both to complete restoration work and provide long-term maintenance. To meet our goals, we will need approximately $52 million in addition to the valuable contribution of volunteer support. Initially, funding from the City is being supplemented by funding from private donors and in-kind support from volunteers. As the partnership grows, a stable, long-term public funding source will be needed to ensure long-term forest restoration and maintenance. Corporate partners, foundations and private donors play an important role in funding. We anticipate that volunteer hours will grow from 60,000 per year in 2005 to 100,000 per year in 2009, valued at an estimated $20 per hour. Volunteer work may range from a single, dedicated individual to a Friends of group to a large community group or employees of a business volunteering for one day. Volunteerism is key to accomplishing the work objectives
and building citywide resident support. By 2025, the growing volunteer contribution of time will be an integral part of the ongoing monitoring and maintenance of all 2,500 acres and will require additional staff support. Paid crews are used for priority sites that lack sufficient volunteer support or sites with difficult conditions that are not appropriate for volunteers. Paid crews are also used to support volunteers, for example, clearing out especially heavily invaded areas in advance of volunteer events in order to maximize the efforts of the volunteers. Extreme invasive plant infestations, steep slopes, riparian areas, and wetlands are better-suited to Parks natural areas crews or paid contract crews. The Partnership also contracts with organizations that provide training and development of a Green Collar Workforce focused on forest habitat restoration. Community An informed, involved, and active community plays an important role as volunteers, as voters, and as contributors to maintaining Seattle s forests for generations to come. We are working to increase awareness that Seattle s trees are slowly dying and that there is a solution to the problem and every Seattle resident can help. Our outreach strategy includes pursuing earned media, speaking at community events, leveraging the internet (e.g. website, Facebook etc), producing and airing videos about the program and creating opportunities for school and corporate work parties, etc. This year we are working on a forest stewardship curriculum for use in schools. Forest Stewards In addition to support received from volunteers at events throughout the year, there is a group of highly committed volunteers, the Forest Stewards, who have taken on specific project sites. The Green Seattle Partnership has developed the Forest Stewards program to harness the energy and excitement of the community, while providing assistance so that each individual steward does not have to "reinvent the wheel." Forest Stewards work with the Green Seattle Partnership staff to develop a restoration plan for their forested parkland site and a system for tracking progress. In return, Forest Stewards are eligible to receive tools, materials, technical assistance and specialized training needed to implement a successful community based forest restoration project. By supporting and enhancing the capabilities of volunteer groups, the Green Seattle Partnership provides an opportunity to establish a foundation for the long-term stewardship and health of our Seattle's forested parklands. The program now has over 85 active forest stewards working at over 40 different parks. Forest Steward Resources Green Seattle Partnership Field Guide (contains information on running volunteer events, use of the tree-iage analysis and BMPs) Event request form for tools and materials as well as event advertising Park in Restoration posters which can be customized events Forest Stewards Directory Map of GSP sites and species data List of native plant nurseries
Other Volunteer Support The Partnership works closely with other local non-profits with like missions such as EarthCorps, an AmeriCorps affiliate, and Nature Consortium, a local non-profit working to restore the West Duwamish Greenbelt, the largest remaining contiguous forest in Seattle. EarthCorps provides restoration crews and manages several very large volunteer events (over 300 volunteers) each year for the Partnership. Nature Consortium hosts weekly volunteer events in the West Duwamish Greenbelt throughout the year. Partnership Results Since the program s inception, the volunteer network has expanded to include over 85 Forest Stewards who inspire, organize and lead events in their neighborhood parks. There were over 78,000 volunteer hours donated in 2008, and an additional 122 acres entered the program last year bringing the total to 386 acres under the Partnership s stewardship. Community support has been remarkable with over $2.4 million in private funds raised through 2008, which supplements increasing public funding. The U.S. Forest Service s urban tree program has recognized the success of the Partnership and provided two appropriations totaling $483,700 to the Green Seattle Partnership over the next few years. The funding will specifically allow the Partnership to expand the Forest Steward network, develop an experiential education program and provide a professional outside audit and evaluation of restoration successes. The Cascade Land Conservancy has leveraged the model created with the Green Seattle Partnership to launch similar programs in other cities in the region: Green Kirkland (2005), Green Tacoma (2006), and Green Redmond (2008). Progress Summary Year Acres Entering Volunteer Hours Restoration 2008 122 78,350 2007 100 57,370 2006 87 46,000* 2005 75 60,000 * a more accurate volunteer tracking system was implemented starting 2006