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Conserve the 4-0-Forest

Answering the Call to Reduce Invasive Plants

Conserve the 4-0-Forest is Trees Atlanta’s new volunteer event promoting restoration work and community engagement in each of the 12 City Council Districts in Atlanta over two days, Friday, June 10 and Saturday, June 11.

Evoking Atlanta’s oldest area code (404), 4-0-Forest is indeed a call to communities to take action to remove invasive plants and help improve the ecological health of our greenspaces and yards. Trees Atlanta’s Forest Restoration team works in hundreds of acres of forested spaces across metro Atlanta each year. During the last program year, they actively worked in 1,471 acres of greenspace.

4-0-Forest projects put learning and action into practice. Trees Atlanta will teach volunteers to identify common invasive plant species and how to remove them while working together in the 4-0-Forest project sites. It is urgently important that we remove and control aggressive and invasive plant species that threaten the health of existing and future trees and the urban ecosystem. Anyone can learn how to protect Atlanta’s trees and native plants in greenspaces, forested areas, public parks, the Atlanta BeltLine Arboretum, and residential yards and properties.

Nearly 500 local residents and volunteers from across Metro Atlanta will work along side Trees Atlanta staff in this 2-day effort that they hope will further empower stewardship of forested spaces. Several Atlanta-based offices of corporations have organized employee groups to participate, including Assurant, BlackRock, CapGemini, Deloitte, Enterprise Holdings, Florence Healthcare, and Sidel Inc. Individual volunteers are encouraged to register in any of the 12 project locations (list below).

Additional Resources:

Get a Head Start

In advance of the weekend event, Trees Atlanta will host a virtual Lunch and Learn: Invasive Species on Thurs., June 9 at noon – 1 pm (free class with registration).

Learn about the impact of invasive species on the urban forest with this kick-off event for the Conserve the 4-0-Forest weekend. Director of Urban Forestry, Brian Williams, and Forest Restoration Manager, Taryn Heidel, will review the Big 5 invasive plant species that Trees Atlanta’s Forest Restoration team removes to mitigate their impact, as well as briefly review the history of restoration work at Trees Atlanta and the different neighborhoods they are actively working with to restore the native plants of their community.

Project Locations

Project locations are listed below. Volunteers who register for each project will recieve meeting location info via email.

Friday, June 10

Saturday, June 11

 

Posted on: June 8, 2022