Learn About Our Urban Forestry Programs
Cross Timbers Urban Forestry Council offers interactive programs throughout the year. The core of all programs is to further our mission and goals.
Mission:
Promote programs in the region to increase interest in Urban & Community Forestry.
Goals:
- Promote a sustainable urban forest in our region
- Provide educational opportunities for local arborists, Citizen Foresters and the public
- Support municipal forestry programs
Citizen Forester
The Citizen Forester program presents a wonderful opportunity for individuals to become skilled at planting, pruning, and maintaining trees in an urban environment. It also provides interested persons with the chance to get involved with local city and county agencies and help their community take care of its public trees. The program has been active for 10 years and has graduated over 150 volunteers to dedicate their time to their communities.
North Texas Urban Forestry Conference
Formerly known as the North Central Texas Urban Forestry Conference, this educational opportunity is put together in cooperation with Texas A&M AgriLife, Texas A&M Forest Service, and Trinity Blacklands Urban Forestry Council.
The conference is intended for tree care workers, arborists, pesticide applicators, landscape architects, and others that work with trees professionally in DFW. The NTUFC (or NCTUFC) is held annually in February and is a great opportunity for professionals to get up to date knowledge on tree care and urban forestry for the North Texas region. The conference helps attendees improve their knowledge and help their business while earning CEUs from ISA, SAF, TDA, and TNLA. More than 80% of our 2019 attendees said the information they learned would benefit them economically!
Topics typically include:
- Insects and Diseases
- Pruning Practices
- Tree Climbing
- Business Management
- Worker Safety
- Irrigation
- Interesting Urban Forestry Projects
- and more!
Bronze Leaf Award
The Bronze Leaf Award is presented to individuals or organizations that accomplish projects which advance urban forestry in the Cross Timbers Region. The award is presented at the annual North Central Texas Urban Forestry Conference. One of the great things about this award is that it brings attention to urban forestry projects and people that are very important to our communities, but are often go unrecognized.
Past award recipients include the City of Arlington for an interactive tree map and virtual tree tour, Micah Pace for the State of the Denton Urban Forest project, and Hester Schwarzer for her long-time commitment to service in urban forestry. Other recipients have included Keep Denton Beautiful and the City of Grand Prairie.
We accept nominations year-round, so if you have a recommendation for the award please submit a nomination now!
Mayfest
CTUFC collaborates with Bartlett Tree Experts and the City of Fort Worth to provide 2,000+ FREE trees to visitors at the annual Mayfest event. The tree seedlings provided are native to the Cross Timbers eco-region & are drought-tolerant.
Scholarships
The Cross Timbers Urban Forestry Council awards a scholarship to students at Texas A&M University and Stephen F. Austin State University. The award is a $1000 scholarship to aid promising students interested in careers in urban forestry:
- The $1000 must be given to one student and not broken into smaller scholarships.
- The faculty at each university will recommend the scholarship recipient to the appropriate academic unit scholarship committee.
- The promising student should have a 3.0 GPA (4 point scale) or higher and be in good standing with the university. The minimum GPA requirement is 2.5.
- The student receiving the scholarship must be majoring in urban forestry.
- Preference will be given to junior and senior level students from DFW area or who intend on working in DFW area, though all undergraduate students are eligible. Preference will also be given to those students who are not receiving other urban forestry scholarships.
The Cross Timbers Urban Forestry Council awards these scholarships each spring semester.