Planner’s Forest Toolkit

This toolkit was created to place all urban forestry program and policy answers for South Carolina in one place. It is intended as a reference guide to address the needs of planners, urban foresters and policy makers, from beginner to advanced expert. It is intended as a reference guide, rather than a book to be read from cover-to-cover.

The South Carolina Forestry Commission receives many requests for information about those policies, codes and practices that lead to a healthy urban forest. The need to ‘manage the urban forest’ may not be on the radar of your local government, or they may think that their policies only need to apply to public trees in parks, in front of city hall and around other municipal buildings. Yet, people are increasingly aware that cities, towns and counties are suffering from rising temperatures (urban heat islands), lower air quality (airborne particulates,ozone, volatile organics), urban flooding and standing water, storm damage, and loss of aesthetics as older trees decline and are not replaced. To address these urban challenges, cities, towns and counties need policies that will affect their entire forest, not just trees in rights of way or at parks and schools.

The Toolkit Sections include:
• Managing Rural and Urban Forests
• Including Trees and Forests in Planning
• Creating Tree Ordinances
• Implementation of Urban and Rural Forestry Programs
• Appendix: Includes citations for facts and statistics, sample bidding forms for hiring consultants, a glossary of terms commonly used in ordinances and a partial list of trees that can best withstand adverse conditions.