Atlantic Highlands Shade Tree Commission

08/27/2026

Landscape Architecture researcher is using drones to map urban forests.

08/07/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/195u7SpWrX/

🌳🐿️🐿️🌳

07/15/2026

Twenty-five million trees by 2033 is not a gardening goal. It is a climate survival strategy, and New York is treating it like infrastructure.
New York is funding tree planting and reforestation as part of a statewide goal to plant twenty-five million trees by 2033. This is not a volunteer weekend project or a feel-good initiative. This is a coordinated, state-funded effort administered through the Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, with specific targets for urban canopy expansion, riparian buffer restoration, and forest regeneration on former agricultural land. The state is putting actual money behind the goal, channeling grants to municipalities, conservation organizations, and private landowners.
The ancient contract is between trees and climate. New York's forests, which cover roughly sixty percent of the state, are the largest carbon sink in the Northeast. They absorb stormwater, filter air pollution, cool urban heat islands, and provide habitat for species from brook trout in the Adirondacks to migrating warblers in the Hudson Valley. But for a century, the state lost forest cover to development, agriculture, and suburban sprawl. The remaining canopy was fragmented, degraded, and increasingly stressed by invasive pests like the emerald ash borer and Asian longhorned beetle. The climate was changing faster than the forest could adapt.
The twenty-five million tree goal is a direct response to that gap. The mechanism includes multiple programs. The Urban and Community Forestry program targets cities like Buffalo, Rochester, and New York City, where low-income neighborhoods often have the least canopy cover and the highest heat exposure. The Trees for Tribs program restores streamside buffers that prevent erosion and filter agricultural runoff before it reaches the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The Regenerate New York program targets marginal farmland that is better suited to forest than agriculture.
The second-order effect is climate resilience at scale. Urban trees reduce summer temperatures by up to ten degrees Fahrenheit, lowering energy costs and heat-related mortality. Forested stream buffers protect against the intensifying floods that climate change is bringing to the Northeast. And the carbon sequestered by twenty-five million trees is a measurable contribution to the state's emissions reduction targets.
Funding grows. Trees rise. Canopy expands.

04/26/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ASyzssExi/

How do trees find their sense of direction as they grow? Researchers are getting to the root — and the branches — of how the grandest of plants develop.

04/25/2026

Thank you to all of the people who showed up for our tree seedling giveaway. There are some remaining and can be found at Jaspan Brothers Hardware.

04/20/2026

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AryQ61iaL/

Why do you plant trees? Tell us in the comments below or visit us at NJTrees.org

04/08/2026

https://grist.org/cities/pocket-gardens-the-tiny-urban-oases-with-surprisingly-big-benefits/

Little bits of greenery are popping up in cities, making them cooler, quieter, healthier and a whole lot nicer for everyone.

04/03/2026

03/26/2026

https://www.optimistdaily.com/2026/03/giant-sequoia-clones-from-3000-year-old-trees-are-taking-root-in-detroit/

Clones from California's most ancient sequoias, including the famous Amos Alonzo Stagg tree, are being planted across Detroit neighborhoods as a conservation strategy.