FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The NYSDEC Urban and Community Forestry Program has awarded a $75,000 grant to support the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy’s ongoing Ash Management Program.
PR Contact: Sarah Larkin | Sarah@bfloparks.org | 716.861.0716
The City of Buffalo, as a supporting partner, will be planting replacement trees valued at $18,750 as a matching component of the grant. Buffalo is one of only six communities in all of Western New York to be selected, spotlighting the ongoing value of the City and Conservancy’s partnership.
The removal portion of the program will focus on large dead Ash trees throughout the Buffalo Olmsted Park System. Since 2014 the Conservancy has been devoted to this cause by investing in inoculations to treat over 300 specimen Ash trees, removing dead trees, and in partnership with the City has planted thousands of diverse tree species to replace those lost to Emerald Ash Borer or other disease and disaster. Bids for removal services will be solicited by the Conservancy, and the removals are anticipated to occur in late summer or early fall 2021.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Basil Seggos announced grant awards totaling $1.4 million for urban forestry projects across New York State to help communities’ inventory, plant, and maintain public trees. The grants are part of DEC’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, aimed to increase public awareness of urban tree values while helping communities develop and implement comprehensive tree management plans to enhance quality of life for residents. The urban forestry grants complement DEC’s ongoing initiatives to address invasive species, climate change, environmental degradation, environmental justice, and urban sprawl.
Only 38 projects from across New York State were selected from a total of 154 applications, each ranked by cost effectiveness, lasting benefits, use of partnerships, inclusion of outreach and education, and support from local stakeholders. Over the last nine years, New York State has funded more than $11.4 million in grants to support projects with a total value of more than $18.3 million.
For more information about DEC’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, visit DEC’s website.
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About the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy
The Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy is the first nonprofit organization in the nation, through a unique public-private partnership, to manage and operate an entire urban park system consisting of more than 850 acres of beautifully designed historic parks, parkways and circles. The Conservancy is an independent not-for-profit, community organization whose mission is to promote, preserve, restore, enhance, and maintain the Frederick Law Olmsted-designed parks and parkways in the Greater Buffalo area for current and future generations. Since 2004 the Conservancy has held responsibility for the management and care of these nationally registered historic green spaces, and in 2019 the Conservancy and City signed a new 12-year partnership agreement with an approved update to its five-year plan for the Olmsted parks in continuing to assist the City in bringing recognition to its collective renaissance. Designed by America’s first landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted more than 150 years ago, these 25 iconic connective spaces represent the nation’s first urban park system. More than 2.5 million visits occur in Buffalo’s Olmsted Park system annually for recreation, relaxation and rejuvenation. Most recently, the American Planning Association recognized Delaware Park as one of the 2014 Great Places in America, The Guardian publication named Buffalo’s Olmsted park system as one of the best park systems in the world, and in 2018 the Conservancy set a Guinness World Record in historic Bidwell Parkway. www.bfloparks.org
The Buffalo Olmsted Park System includes:
Six parks: Cazenovia, Delaware, Front, Martin Luther King, Jr., Riverside, and South parks
Seven parkways: Bidwell, Chapin, Lincoln, McKinley, Porter, Red Jacket, and Richmond
Eight landscaped traffic circles: Agassiz, Colonial, Ferry, Gates, McClellan, McKinley, Soldiers, and Symphony
Smaller spaces: Days, Heacock and Prospect
About DEC
Mission: “To conserve, improve and protect New York’s natural resources and environment and to prevent, abate and control water, land and air pollution, in order to enhance the health, safety and welfare of the people of the state and their overall economic and social well-being.”
DEC’s goal is to achieve this mission through the simultaneous pursuit of environmental quality, public health, economic prosperity and social well-being, including environmental justice and the empowerment of individuals to participate in environmental decisions that affect their lives.
