Encouraging Sustainable Communities

Sustainable Community Development

Community Forestland Retention

SGSF promotes landscape-level community growth management planning to promote retention of forestland. This is largely a function of state and local governments to incorporate relevant forest resource guidance into municipal and county-level land classification, zoning and other policies that can impact the fate of forest cover.

Urban and Community Forestry

As the South continues to become more urbanized, the importance of Urban and Community Forestry (U&CF) programs continuously grows. SGSF supports the U.S. Forest Service’s U&CF program, as well as the South’s many urban forestry initiatives on tree planting, urban forest health and urban forest inventory.

Forest Management on Military Lands

SGSF encourages the inclusion of forest stewardship into discussions surrounding buffer-lands management on Department of Defense installations through the Forest Opportunities for Resource Conservation & Environmental Security (FORCES) program.