Virginia Big Tree Program

Protecting Big Trees

Model Tree Ordinances

Virginia has enabling legislation that allows localities to enact tree conservation ordinances. To our knowledge, no such local ordinances have been passed. Listed below are examples from across the U.S.

• Tree Ordinances for Iowa Communities.
• Sample Tree Ordinances for Iowa Communities
• Urban Forestry South
• LSU Landscape Ordinance Research Project
• Customized tree ordinance from Alabama

Volunteer in Your Community

• Virginia Urban Forest Council
• Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener Program

Other Resources for Tree Advocates

• Find a Certified Arborist.   

• Trees may reduce crime and raise IQ. For this and other helpful information about the importance of trees in an urban environment, see the results of research done at the Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at http://www.herl.uiuc.edu/.

Looking for ways to protect trees?

• The Virginia Urban Forest Council will keep you up to date on what tree advocates all over Virginia are doing to protect trees. At that site, you'll find an illustrated guide to the Council's Tree Steward program. Marge Denham, Coordinator of the Tree Stewards of Greater Lynchburg program, is also happy to answer questions from other tree advocates. The Lynchburg program, which includes training in tree planting and pruning as well a Heritage Tree program, is sponsored in part by the Urban Forest Council.

• Virginia Tech's Master Gardener Program also offers training and information for tree stewards. For information about an active Tree Steward program sponsored by Master Gardeners, contact Virginia Tech Extension Agent Jim Orband in York County.

• Treelink provides access to URBNRNET, a list serve that provides a forum in which to discuss issues related to urban and community forestry. If you have a particular question related to urban or community forestry, you can post it on URBNRNET and get good answers from all over the country.

• Urban Forestry South offers contacts, resources, activities and technical assistance to those interested in urban forestry and in the interface between wildlands and urban areas. It provides a full-text index of urban tree ordininaces as well as a list of related web links to assist tree advocates.

• Useful books for those interested in legal issues as they relate to trees include "U.S. Landscape Ordinances: An Annotated Reference Handbook" (1998) by Buck Abbey, ASLA and the "Municipal Tree Manual" published in 1990 by International Society of Arboriculture.

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