Natural Resource Planning
Long-term planning and land-use planning processes are essential to creating a truly green urban landscape. It is through these processes that we build conservation into the DNA of our communities, moving beyond “one-off” projects to ensuring that all projects integrate conservation into their design.
Portland Audubon devotes significant resources to long-range planning and land-use process. Our members and activists have stepped up time and time again to send letters, testify in person, and serve on committees to shape these processes and ensure that protecting our natural environment is a key priority for our communities. It is by looking 5, 10, 20 even 50 years out that we can truly make transformational decisions that will maintain our regions’ leadership as one of the greenest urban areas in the country.
Portland Audubon’s Work on Natural Resource Planning
- Urban Tree Codes: Our urban tree canopy provides wildlife habitat, cleans our air, reduces urban heat island effects, sequesters carbon, reduces stormwater impacts, and increases human health and neighborhood livability. Portland Audubon engages communities throughout the region to promote strong tree protection codes.
- Green Roofs: Much of our urban landscape is covered in rooftops. Green roofs reduce urban stormwater runoff, provide wildlife habitat, increases energy efficiency, and reduce urban heat island impacts. Portland Audubon works to promote green roof mandates in communities throughout the Metro Region. Portland Audubon teamed with many other groups to successfully advocate for Portland to adopt the strongest green roof mandate in the country.
- Brownfields: Portland has over 900-acres of contaminated brownfields. These unproductive contaminated sites put the health of our communities and our environment at risk. Portland Audubon is part of the Oregon Brownfields Coalition which is working to develop strategies to ensure that brownfields locally and across the state are cleaned-up and put back into productive use.
- Broadway Corridor Project: This 38-acre redevelopment project in Portland’s Central City represents an important opportunity to integrate nature and equity into our urban landscape. Portland Audubon serves on the stakeholder advisory committee for this project advocating for the City to set new standards for integration of parks, green roofs, trees, green streets, bird-safe building designs, energy efficiency, green jobs, and equity goals into this development
- Regional Connectivity Project: Portland Audubon is serving on the stakeholder advisory committee for this project which is developing models and goals for increasing habitat connectivity and protecting wildlife corridors in the Metro Region. This work builds upon past work by Portland Audubon and many other partners developing the Regional Conservation Strategy.
- Portland Natural Resource Inventory Updates/ Environmental Zone Map Correction Project: The City of Portland is currently updating its natural resource maps to ensure that valuable natural resources are correctly mapped and protected. This process is critical to ensuring that local regulations to protect natural resources are correctly applied.