Baltimore Community Forestry

Since 2024, Audubon’s Baltimore team has worked with the city Department of Recreation and Parks to identify and restore forest habitat in neighborhood parks. This work is done in close collaboration with local residents. Through this project, Audubon facilitates community-led design work and collaborates with partners to implement habitat restoration projects that use nature-based greening solutions to address environmental and community needs, such as extreme heat, flooding, and insufficient or inaccessible green spaces. Our partnerships foster community input and ownership.

This work began in earnest in 2025 at Baltimore's Lakeland Park. The existing forest was overwhelmed with invasive plants and fallen trees that discouraged its use by migratory birds and local residents. Through Audubon’s community-centered conservation approach, residents expressed their desire for wider, more accessible paths with bilingual signage, and benches in the forest. Park neighbors also selected native perennials, shrubs, and trees to beautify the forest edge, previously overgrown with invasive vines. Thanks to this thoughtful collaboration, their vision for this three-acre forest has come to life for the benefit of birds and people: the forest is free from invasives and now includes newly planted native trees; a forest edge now exists with native grasses and perennial flowers that bloom in every season and provide food for insects that are vital to birds; forest paths encourage use by people. Audubon has also trained local stewards on urban forestry, migratory birds and the Chesapeake Bay watershed and worked with local partners to weave forest and migratory bird themes into community events.

Audubon is now replicating this community forestry model at Farring Baybrook Park, where work has begun to transform 17 acres of degraded forest into healthy habitat for birds and visitors to enjoy.