Indiana Forest Alliance Develops New Strategy

Indianapolis-based nonprofit Indiana Forest Alliance has released what it calls an Urban Forest Protection Strategy, an initiative intended to protect wooded areas of the city. The organization says it spent three years to record the more than 4,000 forest tracts in Marion County, ranging from one to ten acres in size. The organization says the project is intended to ensure the city will “continue to be a livable, desirable place,” by conserving remaining forests in the metro area.

“The forests are very important to people. But you can’t save them by waiting until a development proposal is moving through the approval process of as an approach to saving forests,” said Indiana Forest Alliance Executive Director Jeff Stant in an interview with Inside INdiana Business.

In 2017, the IFA won a legal battle to stop the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs from clearing a 15-acre tract of forested land at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis to build a monument. Stant says as the organization went through those wranglings, it realized the city needed to take a more proactive approach to tree preservation.

“It involves looking ahead and acting proactively so that you never get to that point. And that’s what this project is about,” said Stant.

Stant says IFA ranked the forested areas based on benefits they provide to the city in terms of flood and pollution mitigation, wildlife habitat and recreation.

Stant says the approximately 4.7 million trees in the city’s forests provide an estimated $258 million value.

The IFA says the strategy is not intended to stop business growth in the city, but it does want a “thoughtful” approach to development and to protect what IFA calls “green infrastructure.”

“We’re not saying that we think that all the forests of the city should be protected. And, all of a sudden, the private property rights are lost for those woods. What we’re saying is that… the city needs to have a program about approaching landowners prior to that point, about seeing if conservation might be an option for them, if it would make financial sense.”

Indianapolis-based real estate and construction firm Keystone Group supports some of the measures brought by the IFA strategy.

“Keystone partners with the neighborhoods of Indianapolis and city leaders to create additional greenspaces, conserve trees and plant more trees and we look forward to working with the Forest Alliance,” said Jennifer Pavlik, senior vice president at Keystone Group. “We plan to continue prioritizing greenspace in our current and future projects.”

City-County Councillor John Barth, who chairs the newly formed Environmental Sustainability Committee, says urban forest conservation is a likely agenda item for the committee in February.

“Supporting efforts to conserve our existing forests and expand the urban tree canopy is critical. We have the opportunity to make Indianapolis a greener and more resilient city,” said Barth in a news release.

Stant says Barth has mentioned the possibility of proposing a tax increment financing (TIF) district to help generate revenue to allow the city to purchase private pieces of forest land.

Click here to view the executive summary of the IFA strategy.