Natural Areas Conservancy

Forests in cities - in 2022, the forests in cities program grew and strengthened a national network of forested Natural Areas practitioners, created new research protocols and tools to support the care and management of forests across the us, and enhanced the role of forests as nature-based solutions to climate change. We added five new city teams to our network through a competitive process growing our reach to 17 us cities. We furthered our work in advancing urban forest science and practice, launching a 12-city study to quantify the cooling benefits of forested Natural Areas, and we hosted a workshop in seattle, Washington with over 70 network members to share best practices, deepen our network, set collective goals for the coming years, and engage with the forest restoration (continued on schedule o) work happening on the ground in seattle.trails - in 2022, the nac's trails team continued to expand access to new york city's 300 miles of nature trails citywide through innovative new trail designs that allow new yorkers of all abilities to enjoy trails. We also provided paid internship opportunities to cuny students to improve access and navigation by mapping 700 trail access points in 29 parks. Finally, we continued our community engagement work by adding 45 additional trail maintainer volunteers who adopted trails citywide, and created community engagement plans for 36 parks.internship - in 2022, our internship program for city university of new york (cuny) students had another successful recruitment year as we hired for 30 internship positions throughout the year, working on a diversity of urban ecology-focused projects and engaged with curated professional development curriculum focused on job readiness training for social impact careers. Projects this year included forest management, wetland monitoring, trail maintenance, supporting the development of nac's high school urban ecology internship program, and launching the nac alumni network. Another milestone of 2022 was the return of the nac x leon levy native plant preserve exchange program, where we facilitated a knowledge-sharing program between nac interns working on urban Natural Areas management at interns from the leon levy native plant preserve in eleuthera, bahamas, who are focused on tropical plant taxonomy.