National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America, Detroit, Michigan Learning Session (LS) Summary: Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities

National Town Meeting for a Sustainable America, Detroit, Michigan Learning Session (LS) Summary LS Number: 212 Title: Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities Date: Monday, May 3, 1999 Panelists: Ruth McWilliams (Panel Co-Chair), Acting Deputy Director of Sustainable Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. J. Glenn Eugster (Panel Co-Chair), River Navigator/Potomac American Heritage River program, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C. Larry Payne (Panel Facilitator), Acting Associate Deputy Chief for State and Private Forestry, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. Andy Lipkis, President, TreePeople, Los Angeles, California Randall Arendt, Vice President, Natural Lands Trust, Media, Pennsylvania Nancy Stahoviak, County Commissioner, Routt County, Colorado The session provided a comprehensive look at "green infrastructure"-our country's natural life support system of environmental and natural resource areas-in the context of sustainable development. More specifically, the session focused on what "green infrastructure" looks like, what it is and how it works, what is being done, and what tools are available to help. Exciting examples of work underway in urban, suburban, and rural places were provided by Andy Lipkis, Randall Arendt, and Nancy Stahoviak, respectively. They demonstrated how "green infrastructure" is being woven into the fabric of communities and landscapes at various scales through planning, conservation, environmental protection, and development efforts. The ecological, economic, and social functions provided by these "working lands" and the links between rural and urban places also were highlighted along with tools to help people take action back home. The session was developed collaboratively with participants of a Green Infrastructure Forum convened by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) as an affiliated National Town Meeting (NTM) event held in Washington, D.C., on March 17-18, 1999. Prior to the Forum, Ruth McWilliams and Glenn Eugster represented USDA and USEPA, respectively, in deliberations of the Metropolitan and Rural Strategies Task Force of the President's Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD) which identified "green infrastructure" as one of five strategic opportunities. The strategic opportunities along with cross-cutting recommendations and actions are presented in the Metropolitan and Rural Strategies chapter of the PCSD's new (May 1999) report entitled "Towards a Sustainable America: Advancing Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the 21st Century." USDA and USEPA are now working with a variety of partners including the American Planning Association, the International City/County Management Association, and The Conservation Fund to make "green infrastructure" an inseparable part of local government plans and community decisions. Local government managers are pivotal in local land use decisions and issues like sprawl. Through training, and subsequent local and regional planning and implementation efforts, communities can benefit from the ecological, economic, and social aspects of watersheds, woodlands, wildlife habitats, parks, and open spaces including farm, ranch, and forest lands. Successful "green infrastructure" efforts require non-traditional, broad-based alliances and approaches which cross boundaries and jurisdictions, connect people to the land in a variety of ways, and use a variety of approaches like agroforestry and restoring brownfields. Through the partnership a training program will be designed and pilot tested within the year which builds upon lessons being learned throughout the United States and world as well as related training being conducted. A related event is the June 1999 "Keep America Growing" conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that will focus on balancing working lands and development. A learning toolkit was developed for the NTM using input from the Green Infrastructure Forum participants. The toolkit provides background information, principles of "green infrastructure," and tools. The tools help answer commonly asked questions: What do I need to know? Who can I work with? How does this approach work best? Where has the approach been used? Where can I learn more? What are the common problems? The toolkit includes numerous websites and contacts and is available electronically on the USDA Forest Service Cooperative Forestry website (http://www.fs.fed.us/spf/coop/). For additional information contact Glenn Eugster (glenn_eugster@nps.gov) or John Nordin (jnordin/wo@fs.fed.us).