The Howard County Forestry Board acts as an advo­cate of sound for­est man­age­ment prac­tices and pro­motes con­ser­va­tion of Howard County for­est resources.

ACTIVITIES

Board activ­i­ties include edu­ca­tional pro­grams, plant­ing of school forests, and tim­ber har­vest plan reviews.   Spe­cific activ­i­ties include:

• Ripar­ian Buffer Plant­ing — Work­ing with Howard County Depart­ment of Pub­lic Works, Depart­ment of Recre­ation and Parks and the State Depart­ment of Nat­ural Resources, the Board helped plant hun­dreds of trees in Atholton Park.
• School Refor­esta­tion — The Board par­tic­i­pates in the Chesa­peake Bay School Refor­esta­tion Project.  School forests have been estab­lished at Elkridge Ele­men­tary, Patux­ent Val­ley Mid­dle, Clarksville Ele­men­tary, and Guil­ford Elementary.
• Howard County Arboreta — The arbore­tum pro­gram is based on the con­vic­tion that an under­stand­ing of the impor­tance of our local ecosys­tem is fun­da­men­tal to hav­ing effec­tive envi­ron­men­tal pro­grams. This pro­gram adds tree tags, inter­pre­tive signs and other edu­ca­tional ser­vices to exist­ing parks and cul­ti­vated gar­dens in the county.
• In the Schools — Howard County Forestry Board mem­bers are involved with the local schools by teach­ing tree iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and envi­ron­men­tal practices.
• Arbor Day — Howard County Forester and Board mem­bers visit County ele­men­tary schools to talk about the impor­tance of trees and dis­trib­ute tree seedlings to stu­dents. Each year the Board donates a tree to cel­e­brate Howard County’s des­ig­na­tion as a “Tree City USA”.
• Activ­ity Book — The Board devel­oped a fun activ­ity book about trees and forests for kids of all ages.

CONTACT

Steve Parker
e-mail:  SParker@howardcountymd.gov

WEBSITE

www.hcforest.sailorsite.net