20-year Forest Restoration Plan - City of Kirkland

Green Kirkland Partnership2. THE SOLUTION:The Green Kirkland Partnership“Conserving and sustaining naturalareas for the benefit and enjoyment ofcurrent and future generations.Our missionThe mission of the Green Kirkland Partnership is to restore allof Kirkland’s forested natural areas to a sustainable—invasivefree—urban forest condition and build an aware, energizedcommunity in which individuals, neighborhoods, nonprofits,businesses and city government work together to protect andmaintain Kirkland’s forested natural areas for current and futuregenerations.Inspired by the Green Seattle Partnership, the City ofKirkland asked Cascade Land Conservancy to partner with it tohelp make the city’s vision of a sustainable, healthy forest a reality.In 2005, Kirkland began restoration in earnest by launchingGreen Kirkland Partnership volunteer events to attract residentsto begin restoration and heighten community awareness of theproblem. The city hosted work parties to remove ivy the firstSaturday of each month through the spring and summer of thatyear. These volunteers contributed 1,100 hours.Since then, the Green Kirkland Partnership has accomplishedthe following:• Initiated restoration projects at Carillon Woods andWatershed Park• Worked with Kiwanis Park neighbors and the MarketNeighborhood Association to develop and conduct regularmonthly work parties at Kiwanis Park• Met with local nonprofit organizations, schools, and businessesto build community engagement• Increased volunteer turn out at work parties from 1,700 hoursin 2005/2006 combined to 3,000 hours in 2007• Hired a Parks Environmental Education and OutreachSpecialist to facilitate outreach, recruit and manage volunteers,coordinate a Green Kirkland Partnership staff team,liaise with other City of Kirkland departments, and arrangevolunteer events• Developed a summer youth program, Teens AssistingSustainable Kirkland (TASK), to hire youth to work withparks ground crews. TASK worked to restore natural areas,particularly the removal of invasive plants at Juanita Bay Park.Five teens were employed in the summer of 2006Our GoalsTo make our vision a reality, the Green Kirkland Partnershipplans the following:• Restore Kirkland’s public forested natural areas by removalof invasive plants and replanting of native trees, shrubs, andground covers for the sustainability of the forest and itshabitat• Build the community’s capacity for long-term stewardshipof the forested natural areas through increased public awarenessof and engagement in protecting, restoring and helpingto maintain healthy urban forests• Implement an Environmental Education and Outreach programto educate and engage the community in stewardshipprojects• Create a sustainable volunteer stewardship program for ongoingrestoration and care of our forested natural areas• Identify and protect additional forested natural areas thatprovide important ecological and public benefits• Establish resources to sustain the program for the longterm• In the future, extend the program to non-forested naturalareas such as emergent wetlands and shorelines• Educate citizens and landowners about the value trees provideand the importance of protecting and stewarding treesand forested natural areasBy 2028, the Green Kirkland Partnership will have restoredall 372 acres of forested areas, increased annual volunteerhours to 14,000 at the program’s peak, created a Natural AreasSteward program to support and recognize volunteers, protectedadditional natural areas through public ownership andprivate landowner stewardship, and increased funding and staffresources to sustain the program. Building on the great work thepartnership has already done, our city will become a spectacularplace to live, work and play for generations to come.22