WNC Sierra Club 6/3: The Environmental Benefits of Urban Forests

Join us as we discuss the importance of urban forests. Urban forests have long been significantly undervalued and overlooked in development planning when it comes to the ecosystem services they provide. This presentation will highlight several major benefits of urban forests, such as carbon sequestration and climate change mitigation, reducing the urban heat island effect and energy costs, enhancing mental well-being, decreasing runoff with better stormwater management, and raising home values and incomes.

The program will be held both in person at the Reuter Center at UNC Asheville and online on Zoom.

Dr. David Clarke is a botanist and professor of biology at UNC-Asheville. After earning a M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and serving as a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, he started his position at UNCA in 2000 and has been teaching botany courses and performing botanical research ever since.

Mary Schultz has a Masters in Biology and has taught undergraduate courses in Biology and Environmental Science at UNCA, Warren Wilson College, and Western Carolina University. Her education and teaching experience include Botany, Plant Ecology, Ecosystem Ecology, and Climate Ecology. She currently teaches Biology and Environmental Science at Mars Hill University.