The Urban and Community Forest program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture has allocated billions in grant funding across the U.S. — including Georgia — to increase urban tree canopies and the workforce in this area equitably.
Grant funding was made possible through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds. The Urban and Community Forest program was originally created as part of the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which is centered around environmental justice and ensuring specific communities get at least 40 percent of certain federal funding opportunities.
In total, Georgia received $9.75 million in Urban and Community Forest IRA Grant Allocations — funding allocated from the federal government specifically for Georgia — and another $17 million in Notice of Funding Opportunity Grants in 2023, which was awarded after various grant proposals. This funding went to a number of nonprofits, neighborhood organizations, city governments, and more.
It’s well documented that trees mitigate the problems caused by urban heat islands — areas where concrete and lack of greenery lead to warmer temperatures than neighboring areas. The addition of trees provides shade and decreases temperatures, which will become increasingly important with rising global temperatures in a city with the nickname “Hotlanta.”
Urban heat islands also tend to affect poorer neighborhoods that are not afforded utilities like greenery as easily as their wealthier counterparts, and are often neighborhoods with a large portion of Black and Brown residents. A multidisciplinary project started in 2021 called Urban Heat ATL mapped out some of the city’s urban heat islands by empowering residents with sensors and collecting community data.
Partnership of Southern Equity was awarded $2 million for their program “Canopy for Just Communities,” which will focus on increasing urban tree canopy across underinvested areas in cities where it is…
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