North Carolina’s Population Boom Inspires Advocates to Protect Urban Forests

In the nearly three decades that Barbara Driscoll has lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the city has become brighter. Sunshine pours onto parts of town that she remembers being cool and shady and bounces off windows in newly built apartments and shopping centers. It’s a sign that the city’s tree canopy, one of its defining features, is disappearing.

Chapel Hill, in Orange County, is just one of many North Carolina communities experiencing an influx of residents and, in turn, significant tree loss. The state, among the fastest growing in the country, is losing an average of 4,500 acres of urban canopy to development each year, according to a 2020 climate risk assessment. It’s an especially troubling trend as climate change accelerates: Along with their scenic appeal, these towering trees provide shade, prevent flooding and erosion by soaking up rainfall, and absorb carbon dioxide.

What’s more, clearing space for new homes is costing birds and other wildlife their habitats. Wood Thrushes, for example, nest in the state’s city and suburban forests, while Kentucky Warblers and other long-distance migrants rely on those woods for stopovers.

Last year Audubon North Carolina launched a program to confront this canopy loss statewide. Its goal, says forest program manager Hannah Pursley, is to help local Audubon chapters and other groups secure policies that promote environmentally friendly development. Though the effort is in its early days, it has already secured city- and county-level wins that advocates hope can serve as models for other communities.

Driscoll, conservation committee chairperson at New Hope Bird Alliance—an Audubon chapter for Chatham, Durham, and Orange counties in the Research Triangle region—is among those helping to lead the charge. She sprang into action last year when the group learned that Chatham County, where the population grew by an estimated 10 percent between 2020 and 2024, was preparing an update to its Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), a set of regulations for local land use. It was a rare opportunity to shape the county’s growth; the UDO is scheduled for updates only once every 10 years. “Sometimes it ends up being more like 20,” Driscoll says. “These things tend to fall to the wayside, so when municipalities actually open the ordinances up for public comment, you have to take your shot.”

The New Hope Bird Alliance volunteers and other conservation groups moved quickly to submit their recommendations. To support the chapter, Audubon North Carolina emailed advocacy alerts to members in the area, urging them to contact commissioners to support the changes.

After months of review and revisions, Chatham County passed its updated UDO in November 2024, incorporating some of the key conservation proposals. The new policy, which will take effect in December, requires developers to remove invasive plants and plant native trees like oaks and river birch during construction projects. It also provides financial incentives for developers to keep large native trees even in areas where it’s not required.

Hoping to replicate this success, Audubon North Carolina is developing a digital tool that analyzes land ordinances and helps local advocates tailor public comments to suit their community. It should help with the biggest challenge the New Hope chapter faced: finding the right language for making recommendations. “Every government speaks a little differently,” Driscoll says, and often in jargon. 

For Pursley, the issue strikes a personal chord: Development has left her hometown of Waxhaw practically unrecognizable. “I used to go play barefoot in the woods beside my neighborhood and not come home until after dark,” she says. “Even in just the past 10 years, it’s become completely built up.” The state is developing faster than environmental policies are being implemented, and even when those rules are in place, many towns lack the funds to actually enforce them and hold developers accountable.

Still, Pursley gets why the state’s population is growing so quickly; North Carolina is rich in mountains, beaches, universities, and job opportunities. The key, she says, is making sure that community leaders know development and environmental preservation are not mutually exclusive. “We don’t want Audubon to come off as anti-development,” she says, particularly as North Carolina, like much of the country, struggles with a housing shortage and rising cost of living. “We are pro–sustainable development that benefits people, birds, and the planet.”

Achieving that balance means trading urban sprawl for high-density buildings, says Allen Hurlbert, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies how ecological communities respond to human interference. This development style reduces clear-cutting and habitat fragmentation and concentrates road traffic to minimize wildlife collisions, he says. Developers can also support pollinators and other wildlife by incorporating green space with native plants around and between buildings.

That’s the hope in Wake ­County, which lost more than 11,000 acres of tree canopy over the past decade. Last year Wake Audubon members and other advocates from a grassroots group called the Oak Folk packed a city council meeting with supporters to call for a master plan to help protect trees in Raleigh. The ­council ­unanimously approved their proposal, and the city is developing that plan, which is expected to be released early in 2026.

North Carolina isn’t the only state losing its greenery as it grows. The USDA estimates that the country is surrendering an average of 175,000 acres of urban and suburban tree canopy to development each year, with some of the greatest losses in Florida, Oregon, Alabama, and Georgia. Local governments play a primary role in preserving these trees, says Tanner Haid, senior director of urban forestry field delivery at American Forests.

In North Carolina, advocates are looking to lock down more wins in the Research Triangle. After its victory in Chatham County, New Hope Bird Alliance is now focusing its efforts on adjoining Durham County, which is in the early stages of updating its UDO. Then it’s on to Orange County, where Driscoll hopes to bring more shade—and more bird habitat—back to her community.

This story originally ran in the Fall 2025 issue as “Canopy Campaigners.” To receive our print magazine, become a member by making a donation today.