From the Forest Service perspective, green infrastructure is an interconnected network of natural areas, conservation lands, and working landscapes that support native species, maintain natural processes, sustain air and water resources, and contribute to the health and quality of life for America’s communities and people. Green Infrastructure offers a strategic approach to land conservation that identifies the ecological “bottom line” for the sustainable use of land across multiple ownerships and jurisdictions. Green infrastructure includes everything from large conservation areas like National Forests and National Parks, regional and local landscape elements such as wetlands and stream buffers, to the urban forest and street trees, and emphasizes the connectivity of these elements.

The Forest Service has been involved in promoting green infrastructure for quite a while.

1996: The Forest Service participated on the President’s Council on Sustainable Development – Metropolitan and Rural Strategies Task Force (Green Infrastructure was one of the items discussed)

August 1999: The Forest Service supported the development of a green infrastructure training program by cosponsoring a meeting of 19 public, private and nonprofit professionals at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The idea for the course was to “help communities and their partners make green infrastructure an inseparable part of federal, state and local government plans, policies, practices and decisions.” This meeting laid the foundation for today’s green infrastructure training partnership between the Forest Service, The Conservation Fund, and a diversity of other public and private organizations.

September 2005: The Forest Service cosponsored, along with The Conservation Fund, the National Park Service’s Rivers Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Defenders of Wildlife, and other partners a national roundtable on “linking lands for nature and people.” The roundtable, which brought together 40 conservation and land planning professionals, embraced the concept of linking lands, articulated a common vision, and identified key actions and a process for advancing shared goals. The roundtable resulted in a larger and more diverse group of partners that agreed in concept to work together to advance a linking lands approach.

Since 2005, the Forest Service has:

• Promoted and disseminated the book by Mark Benedict and Edward McMahon – Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities
• Supported a national green infrastructure course that has been offered at NCTC by The Conservation Fund
• Supported State, regional, and community green infrastructure workshops held across the country (Alaska, Salt Lake City, etc.)
• Sponsored conference sessions, publications, case studies, demonstration projects, and related educational materials
• Supported the development of www.greeninfrastructure.net 
• Participated in a developing Community of Practice