The Collaborative is centered around workgroups that focus on different urban nature issues, sectors, and disciplines.
Workgroups will span an array of topics, including urban forests, green stormwater infrastructure, green jobs, and governance.
Workgroups may be led by other organizations already coordinating on any given topic. The Collaborative is not intending to be the lead organizer of all workgroups or duplicate existing ones; rather we are consolidating efforts to create regional efficiencies to reduce meeting fatigue for regional experts.
Workgroups will be inclusive to ensure that anyone with relevant expertise can contribute or anyone interested in learning more can listen in. There will be a call for participation, or let us know in advance of your interest in a certain topic.
We envision members will include representatives from communities, community-based organizations (CBOs), Tribal Nations, nonprofit organizations, academics, regulatory agency staff, and private and public sector practitioners (planners, landscape architects, engineers).
Members will mostly be regional, but some will be from further afield to provide state and national perspectives.
Workgroup members will provide technical expertise during meetings, resources and connections relevant to the topic, and input/review of document drafts.
The goals of each workgroup are to identify:
- Key thresholds and parameters relevant to a regional urban nature goal
- Existing resources and tools
- Problems the workgroup can solve (we want to help solve existing problems, not create more process)
- Community needs, subregional needs, regional needs
- Resource and information gaps
- Priority locations needs
- Next steps
The outcomes of each workgroup will be:
- Progress toward the multi-benefit regional goal
- Defined action items for providing tools & information
Workgroup Topics
Workgroup topics can be organized into 5 main categories: the 3 areas included in the multi-benefit regional goal, plus governance/finance and
community/socioeconomic factors. Topics may be included in more than one category. For information about current priorities, see the PRIORITY TOPICS on our main page. Potential workgroups include:
- Healthy urban nature (including biodiversity)
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- Tribal / indigenous lands
- Parks
- Corridors, greenways/trails, and green space
- Urban forests
- Riparian restoration
- Pest and invasive species management, including integrated pest management (IPM)
- Green streets
- Plant palettes
- Street trees
- Turf alternatives
- Native plant nursery trade
- Novel ecosystems
- People experiencing homelessness
- Urban wildland interface (UWI)
- Wildlife focal species
- Bird safe design
- Artificial light at night (ALAN)
- Public health, including air quality and greenhouse gases
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- Flooding
- Urban heat
- Parks
- Corridors, greenways/trails, and green space
- Green schoolyards
- Urban agriculture
- Green building
- Green streets and transportation
- People experiencing homelessness
- Energy use reduction
- Wildfire impacts, largely to air quality
- Artificial light at night (ALAN)
- Clean water
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- Green streets
- Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI)
- Flooding
- Soil health and groundwater recharge
- People experiencing homelessness
- Small water cycles, small infiltration systems (~permaculture)
- Governance / Finance factors
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- Tribal / indigenous lands
- Municipal funding
- Maintenance / stewardship
- Monitoring
- State policy
- Local and regional policy
- Land use and zoning
- Community / Socioeconomic factors
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- Tribal / indigenous lands
- Aesthetics and cultural expectations
- Community engagement/stewardship (maintenance and monitoring)
- People experiencing homelessness
- Green gentrification and investment / disinvestment
- Green jobs / training / internships / workforce development
- Housing and affordable housing
- Transportation and parking
- Urban wildland interface (UWI)