Arlington Forestry and Natural Resources Plan

A growing community inventories and updates its forestry and natural resource best practices to protect and enhance its public open spaces and parks.

Arlington County’s Forestry and Natural Resources Plan (FNRP), adopted in December 2023, is a comprehensive integrated natural resource management framework. Replacing the County’s 2004 Urban Forest Master Plan and 2010 Natural Resources Management Plan, the FNRP consolidates all aspects of urban forestry, habitat management, invasive species control, and climate resilience into a single, policy-driven framework embedded as one of 12 elements of Arlington’s Comprehensive Plan.

Geographically the smallest self-governing county in the country—slightly less than 26 square miles, Arlington County maintains 924 acres of open space with rare ecosystems, over 750,000 trees, of which 119,000 publicly-owned. The FNRP examines all publicly accessible open spaces (public and privately owned, including traditional parks and open spaces, recreation facilities, natural resource sites, and streetscapes.

On a team led by American Forests, Biohabitats developed best practices for flora and fauna inventories; urban, street, and park forest management; pest, deer and wildlife, and invasive species management; meadow, riparian and wetland habitat management; and ecosystem restoration and assessing operations, maintenance, programming and staffing practices for the FNRP.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Conservation
• Ecological Restoration