KIB President To Testify In Washington D.C.

Keep Indianapolis Beautiful president, David Forsell, is testifying before a congressional committee, Thursday, asking members to fully fund the urban and community forestry program.

President Obama’s proposed budget calls for an almost 16 percent cut.

Forsell says nonprofits and municipalities around the state depend on the federal funds to educate Hoosiers on protecting and expanding urban forests.

"While it's hard to attach a cut in federal funding to specific neighborhoods or specific cities, federal funding provides the vehicle really by which wisdom is shared between nonprofits and municipal foresters," he said.  "We are able to provide the most effective and efficient community forestry activity as possible."

The money also pays for "groundbreaking research," including connections between human health and tree canopy cover and on ways urban forests help communities adapt to climate change.

Forsell says fewer projects will be possible if funding isn’t restored.

"At the end of the day, what's lost is our ability to be as efficient, as smart, as informed as we can be with the limited dollars that we have to care for and to plant our nation's urban forests," he said.

The proposed budget allocates about $24 million for urban and community forestry.  Forsell wants funding restored to last year’s level of $28 million.

Photo courtesy KIB via Facebook.