Thursday, May 18, 2023
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
100 Church Street
Dublin, GA 31021
The topic for this program will be "Readiness, Response, and Recovery: Managing Trees with Storms in Mind," and the Georgia Forestry Commission will roll out its new resources with the Green Infrastructure Center regarding specific pruning activities, risk assessment, and tree inventorying to prepare community forests for storms. We'll also review debris staging, contracts, and risk assessment and take a look at Hurricane Michael post-storm activities years later. We'll highlight cities that have dealt with it and invite GEMA/FEMA to speak on things to keep in mind to get assistance.

Lunch is included.
CEUs: 3.25 ISA Certified Arborist, Municipal Arborist, and BCMA-Management. 3 SAF Registered Forester CFEs. Landscape Architects and others will receive a certificate of attendance for their CEU records.

We are pleased to announce that the Georgia Tree Council has been awarded reaccreditation by the Standards for Excellence® Institute. Our participation in this national voluntary accreditation and recognition program demonstrates our continued commitment to ethics and accountability in nonprofit management and governance. The Georgia Tree Council has been awarded the Standards for Excellence® Seal since 2008, the first nonprofit organization in Georgia to do so.  To learn more about Standards for Excellence® accreditation for nonprofits, visit https://standardsforexcellence.org.

Each year, the Georgia Tree Council honors individuals, organizations, businesses, municipalities, and counties for outstanding work in protecting and enhancing our community forests. Congratulations to all of 2022's award recipients! Read about who they are and the good work that they are doing.

Where can we go to see magnificent collections of trees? In this two-part webinar series, "Georgia's Arboretums," representatives from various Georgia botanical gardens and arboretums talk to us about their venues, their locations, history, and the outstanding trees maintained there.  These gardens and arboretums are excellent places to visit and learn about tree species.  To view the webinars, click on "What We Do" at the top of this page, then "Resources," and then "Program Presentation Archives" or on the "green" here.

The Georgia Forestry Commission and Georgia Tree Council used federal hurricane relief funding to hire a Colorado-based trees and technology consulting firm, PlanIT Geo, to measure the damage to the region's urban forest. With this information, GFC and GTC aim to assist communities with restoration of tree canopy and ensure that new trees are planted strategically and equitably across the landscape, with a focus on the hardest hit areas, historically underserved communities, and areas with the most viable planting space. A map of all trees and planting areas was created using pre- and post-storm aerial imagery to begin this effort. The damage was then totaled within affected communities and neighborhoods to begin to tell the story of Hurricane Michael's impacts on southwest Georgia's urban tree canopy. Click to read the full report.

The Georgia Tree Council and the Georgia Forestry Commission now offer those interested in becoming an ISA Certified Arborist® the opportunity to view recordings of our ISA Certified Arborist® Exam Course Webinars online.  Over seven recorded webinars, instructors and certified arborists Rob Swanson and Susan Russell help attendees prepare for the exam with talks covering Tree Biology, Tree Identification, Soil Science, Water Management, Tree Nutrition and Fertilization, Tree Selection, Installation and Establishment, Pruning, Tree Support and Lightning Protection, Diagnosis and Plant Disorders, Plant Health Care, Tree Assessment and Risk Management, Trees and Construction, Urban Forestry, Tree Worker Safety, and Climbing & Working in Trees.