Programs
URI has two main programs: GreenSkills and Community Greenspace. URI has expanded into Green Infrastructure projects and De-vining trees as well. Learn more about them here.
The Community Greenspace program provides material supplies, technical advice, and classroom-based and hands-on training to support resident-driven community greening projects. Since 1995, Greenspace has completed more than 310 diverse urban restoration projects with an annual participation of about 1,000 New Haven residents.
URI GreenSkills is a local green jobs program that employs high school students and adults with employment barriers through the planting of trees. GreenSkills connects people to their communities, their environment, and each other.
Green infrastructure is a general term used to describe water management strategies that harness and utilize natural features and processes. URI, in partnership with EMERGE Connecticut Inc., the City of New Haven, and the Yale Hixon Center for Urban Ecology, has expanded its work on green stormwater infrastructure. To date, this work has included the installation and maintenance of 195 bioswales throughout New Haven.
De-Vining and Natural Area Management
“De-vining” is when trained volunteers cut non-native vines that strangle and outcompete trees. This work restores forest health. We cut non-native vines such as bittersweet and honeysuckle, invasive shrubs such as multiflora rose, and other plants that enable vine growth. This initiative is why you might see pink tape in natural areas–the tape marks young trees that we want to protect when de-vining. Don’t worry, the tape is biodegradable!
