The Northern Virginia Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) has teamed up with Virginia Department of Forestry to help the state reach its goal of planting 9 million trees in the next five years.

The goal will bring about targeted water quality improvements in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, increase the SWCD’s visibility, and draw in individuals and groups intent upon contributing to urban forestry and conservation.

“We’re really able to multiply the message much further because of the shared and mutual understanding of each other’s programs,” Northern Virginia SWCD Executive Director Laura Grape said.

The partners have joined efforts to increase urban tree canopy, in part through the district’s spring seedling sale – which this year sold out in 11 hours with help from the state’s promotions – and by requesting organizations and individuals throughout Fairfax County who are planting trees to record it on an app the Department of Forestry developed, called ‘My Trees Count.’

“When we’re looking at it collectively, it’s way more valuable than that one tree. That’s why every one of those trees count,” Virginia Department of Forestry Urban Forest Conservationist Jim McGlone said.

“The Northern Virginia SWCD has been instrumental in achieving the goals and objectives of my agency,” he said. “I couldn’t have gotten my job done without the relationship I have with them.”

As part of a regulatory program to improve watershed quality, the state’s objective is to plant 30,000 acres of new urban tree canopy, or 9 million trees – about three-quarters the size of Washington, D.C. McGlone said he knew the state wasn’t going to plant them all, so they developed the ‘My Trees Count’ app. It went online last fall, and the SWCD has been promoting it in conjunction with its seedling sales.

As of mid-April, nearly 5,000 trees have been logged. The state has no way of capturing those trees unless landowners and groups add the trees to the app. The app includes an option to map where the tree was planted, which, while not required, assists the state in tracking how many trees are being planted in the most vulnerable areas, another area in which the SWCD and the state are linked.

The app also offers information on how to improve water quality and an area to include a short story about the tree planting that is recorded. For example, one group helped plant fruit trees in one of the at-risk neighborhoods and wrote about that experience.

“Because it’s spatially-related, we may be able to do some analysis to see what is happening locally,” Grape said. “We also have interests in focusing on equity, to look at the areas where we are the most vulnerable in Fairfax County and the areas with the poorest tree canopy coverage, so there’s a lot of overlap.”

The SWCD distributed about 6,400 seedlings to 410 customers. About 800 seedlings were donated to restoration projects in partnership with Fairfax County Park Authority to be used in 15 sites located at local parks in portions of the county that have vulnerable populations and lack of tree canopy coverage, Grape said.

Tags: Forestry