The Miami Canopy Coalition is a Dade Heritage Trust partnership initiative with a mission to preserve, protect and enhance Miami’s urban tree canopy through education and advocacy.
The Coalition’s white paper, Blueprint for Miami’s Urban Forests is now available. Authored by a team of environmental law attorneys, arborists, educators and political strategists, the white paper,
is a wonderful resource for governments, environmental resource professionals, planners, architects and developers.
To view the document, please click this link.
Canopy Coalition Background:
Dade Heritage Trust has a growing concern about the removal of large, old-growth specimen trees in urban Miami; and the lack of adequate tree canopy and green space for an increasingly dense City population under the threat of sea level rise/climate change.
In June of 2019, Dade Heritage Trust called an informal meeting of arborists, environmental organizations, neighborhood advocates and governmental representatives to discuss the preservation and protection of trees, tree canopy and green spaces in Miami.
The takeaways from that first meeting were:
- Arborists, environmental organizations, governmental agencies and residents are concerned about the loss of tree canopy in Miami
- Governmental policy and procedure must change to better protect trees
- The public must be engaged to care about trees and understand their health, environmental and socio-economic benefits
To address these core ideas, Dade Heritage Trust appealed to the Miami Foundation for funding for the Miami Canopy Coalition. The Foundation responded with a $25,000 grant. With that grant money, Dade Heritage Trust contracted with a team of professionals to develop a white paper on tree policy.
We will continue to work with our partners and advocates and press our elected officials for additional tree protection and tree canopy enhancement.
DHT/Miami Canopy Coalition citizen-based science initiatives include DHT’s Miami Urban Tree Trekkers Educational Program and a developing relationship with FIU’s ReLeaf program.
For more information about the benefits of urban trees visit:
Miami Canopy Coalition paper on trees and social justice
Miami Canopy Coalition paper on trees and resiliency
https://www8.miamidade.gov/global/recreation/milliontrees/home.page
https://www.americanforests.org/blog/what-is-urban-forestry-a-quick-101/
Please email chris@dadeheritagetrust.org to join the Miami Canopy Coalition!
