The USDA has given a $250,000 Urban and Community Forestry Grant to the Conway Tree Board.
The Conway Tree Board is meant to “preserve and enhance the natural beauty of Conway, to protect the health and safety of the residents of Conway and to protect the environment,” Conway communications director, Bobby Kelly, said.
Vice-Chair of the Conway Tree Board, Robert Eric Bell said, “When the Conway Tree Board was formed 20 years ago, it was formed with the stated goals to preserve and enhance the natural beauty of Conway, to protect the health and safety of the residents of Conway, and to protect the environment by providing the development of a Community Forest Management Plan for the regulation of the planting, maintenance, removal and protection of trees on public property within the City of Conway. The Conway Urban Forest Master Plan is the culmination of these goals.”
The Conway Tree Board is meant to do this by creating and enacting a Community Forest Management Plan in order to help regulate the planting, maintenance, removal and protection of trees that are located on public property in Conway.
This is where the Urban and Community Forestry Grant comes into play.
This grant is part of a larger, nationwide initiative to “advance urban forestry and community resilience in disadvantaged census tracts,” according to conwayarkansas.gov.
The funds from the grant will be used to engage the public, make a list of the types of trees in Conway, utilize public-facing tree maps, create a plan for urban forestry and collect, assess and analyze tree data.
Right now, the Community Forest and Management Plan is still in the beginning stages. According to Kelly, the Conway Tree Board is still developing the final plan and getting things down on paper and working hand-in-hand with the Davey Resource Group in order to do these things.
Bell said, “We have used grant funding to enlist the assistance of Davey Resource Group in developing our plan, and we are currently in our initial stages. Our target areas’ public trees have been completely inventoried and mapped.”
This mapping process is quite extensive.
Bell said, “We are intending the plan as a roadmap that provides detailed information about the current status of our urban canopy, outlines the development and management of the urban forest and educates the public regarding the best practices to preserve and enhance our beautiful tree cover.”
Robbie Alberson the City of Conway grant administrator said, “Our Tree Board was interested in applying for the grant … the application was a pretty standard, simple application through the state… [the Tree Board and I] compiled an application and met all the requirements that the state had for the application and submitted that and, fortunately, we were approved.”
The Conway Tree Board is having a public information meeting at the Conway Community Center on Thursday, Feb. 26 from 5-7 p.m. to discuss the Urban Forest Master Plan for Conway.