A grant through the Title VIII/Urban and
Community Forestry Program of the USDA Forest Service
supported the work of the following partner organizations to
collect and display neighborhood tree data on the OASIS
website:
Citizen Pruner's of New York City, volunteered to
collect detailed information about the trees in the 3 study areas
(Hunt's Point, Lower East Side, New Brighton). Council on the
Environment and Trees New York helped train these voluteers to collect
the data necessary for our study.
Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC),
through its
Open Space Greening Program that trains and coordinates students
and other volunteers to update mapped information on community
gardens and other green spaces throughout the city (Lenny Librizzi,
Meredith Olson);
Trees New York, a nationally acclaimed
organization dedicated
to improving the quality of life for all communities through
participatory tree related programs. Trees New York plants,
preserves and cares for trees through crucial community-oriented
and technical support services through education, training,
desktop publishing, and advocacy efforts. Trees New York is
the only organization in the region that focuses solely on urban
trees and forestry. The group expanded its "Citizen Pruner"
program for this project, a joint effort between Trees NY and
the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation providing certification
in tree care (Mat Cahill, Susan Gooberman);
State University of New York's College of Environmental Science
and Forestry (SUNY-ESF) working with the Forest Service's
Northeastern Research Station (David Nowak, Jeffrey Walton);
and
NYPIRG's Community Mapping Assistance Project (CMAP)
, whose
mission is to strengthen nonprofit, philanthropic, and public
service organizations by providing easy access to computer
mapping technology. CMAP is the primary architect and builder of
the OASIS website and related applications (Steven Romalewski,
Christy Knight, Meg McCarron, Marty DeBenedictis, Kim Morehouse);
Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI),
a provider of spatial analysis and geographic information
system (GIS) mapping software and a key partner in the development
of the OASIS website (Johan Herrlin, Dave LaShell).
The Neighborhood Tree Mapping Project partners also appreciate
the ongoing assistance and encouragement of the Forest Service's
Matthew Arnn (Director, Metropolitan Initiative) and Philip
Rodbell (Urban and Community Forestry).
The project also benefited from in-kind support from each of
the partner organizations, as well as other participants in
OASIS such as the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation.
For example, the Parks Department's Natural Resources Group was
a founding partner of OASIS, and has been the liaison between
OASIS and the city's Department of Information Technology and
Telecommunications which oversees the development and use of the
city's new GIS basemap. The basemap is the source for the aerial
photographs at the OASIS website, and is also the source for
additional GIS layers that were essential to this neighborhood
tree survey project.
The partner organizations are working together with the Forest
Service's Metropolitan Initiative, the city Parks Department's
Central Forestry Office, and community groups through the work
of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance to develop
a community manual for other neighborhoods to undertake tree
surveys.