Landcare’s emphasis on careful, active, profitable land management provides a powerful tool for communities to sustain and maintain their green infrastructure: 1) landcare helps keep working lands profitable, healthy, and in private ownership and, 2) for lands under easements by land trusts or in public ownership, managing them as working lands using landcare practices helps pay for restoration and maintenance activities while also contributing to the region’s economic vitality.

Working landscapes such as forests and farms not only grow commodity and niche market products that fuel regional economies, their scenery promote eco-tourism, and their functioning ecosystems provide numerous services such as carbon storage, water filtration, and wildlife habitat. Working landscapes form the backbone of a region’s green infrastructure, especially where private landownership patterns dominate and it is too expensive to purchase for public ownership or put under easement sufficient land area to provide needed green infrastructure services.

Green infrastructure is an interconnected network of open spaces producing the ecosystem values and functions communities must have to complement their roads, structures, utilities, and other built infrastructure.  Green infrastructure can provide utilities more cheaply than engineered solutions; storm water management and carbon storage are classic examples where trees and soil outperform concrete structures and mechanical apparati. Communities that smartly direct growth of their built environment so as to create and maintain green infrastructure can reduce taxes needed to engineer, build, and maintain infrastructure to perform lost ecosystem services.  These communities also benefit from improved scenery, biodiversity, and quality of life.  To see how some communities in the United States are integrating Green Infrastructure planning and landcare, visit http://narc.org/uploads/greenregions/GreenRegions.htm
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Residential, retail, and commercial development can proceed hand in hand with working landscapes and other green infrastructure strategies.  Certified “green” building and green neighborhood strategies such as those promoted by LEED Neighborhood Development and EarthCraft Communities help municipalities and consumers ensure their green infrastructure is being conserved and utilized. learn more