This is our five-year goal from our 2020 Strategic Climate Action Plan to plant, protect, and prepare a combined 3 million trees by the end of 2025. This effort contributes to climate change mitigation, forest health, improved salmon habitat, and more tree canopy in urban areas.
2025 Strategic Climate Action Plan (SCAP) targets
Protect: We’re accelerating our efforts to protect forestland, conserving 6,500 acres (the equivalent of 2 million trees) that are already absorbing and storing CO2 and contributing to clean water and healthy habitat.
Plant: We’re planting 500,000 more trees countywide with an emphasis on tree canopy in communities where there is the greatest need and where tree planting can help improve salmon habitat.
Prepare: We’re preparing 1,000 acres of forest (the equivalent of 500,000 trees), to be more resilient under a changing climate with warmer, drier summers. These management actions include removing noxious weeds and thinning forests in some areas to create more room for healthier trees to thrive.
We did it! With our partners, we planted over 1 Million Trees!
Where do we go from here?
We get bigger, we get better.
Planting trees continues to be an important aspect of our work and we know that many parts of the county can still benefit from additional trees and more canopy cover.
In addition to planting, we need to protect quality forests that provide good habitat for fish and other wildlife, and we need to steward those forests so they remain healthy and resilient for future generations.
Welcome to 3 Million Trees!
A more comprehensive approach to promote healthy, resilient forests – and communities!
We are building on the momentum of our successful 1 Million Trees partnership with a more comprehensive approach that promotes healthy and ecologically productive forests.
Efforts to achieve 3 Million Trees will help us deliver many important benefits, including:
- Increased carbon storage to help slow climate change;
- Better human health benefits;
- Higher quality salmon habitat;
- Improved water quality;
- Equitable access to forests and green space, especially in historically underinvested areas.
An integrated approach to confront climate change and promote clean water and healthy habitat
King County is implementing several integrated plans and initiatives that address forest protection and forest health. Click the links below to learn more:
- Strategic Climate Action Plan: A five-year blueprint for County action to confront climate change, integrating climate change into all areas of County operations and its work in the community. This ambitious plan contains many goals and initiatives to protect and improve forest health.
- 30-Year Forest Plan: A shared vision for all of King County that will help guide our work on forest cover and forest health in both rural and urban areas of the county.
- Land Conservation Initiative: A regional collaboration between King County, cities, businesses, farmers, environmental partners and others to preserve our last, most important natural lands and urban green spaces in 30 years.
- Clean Water Healthy Habitat: A strategic approach to ensuring that the County is investing in the right places to improve water quality and expand habitats, improving the lives of people, fish, and wildlife in our region.
If you would like more information on the 3 Million Trees initiative, contact Sarah Brandt at sbrandt@kingcounty.gov or 206-263-5682.