Healthy Forests
Rock Creek Park’s nearly 1,800 acres of forest are the heart, lungs, and soul of the DC region, providing critical climate and social resilience for the more than one million people who live, work, and play in the region and storing 100,000 tons of carbon above ground. Yet the challenges of climate change – shifting plant regimes, extreme precipitation events that exacerbate flooding, erosion on the forest floor, and rapid invasion by non-native plants – threaten the future of those fragile forests. In short, the forest is failing.
Rock Creek forest Resilience framework
The Conservancy and National Park Service have collaboratively developed a scientific framework for restoring the ailing forests that increases biodiversity, improves wildlife habitat, and increases equitable access to the park. The Framework offers strategies to guide the restoration and maintenance of Rock Creek’s forests while adapting to climate change.
The goals of the framework are the following:
Increase biodiversity
Improve wildlife habitat
Increase equity of access to the park
Enhance formal trails and wayfinding
Engage park visitors in efforts to Recreate Responsibly
This will be accomplished with a few key strategies:
Reduce forest fragmentation
Plant climate-adapted species to accelerate regeneration
Invite park neighbors to create people-powered restoration through volunteerism and service
Mini-Oases: where people-powered restoration happens
Tens of thousands of volunteers and skilled Weed Warriors have partnered with the Conservancy to remove nearly one million square feet of invasive plants from 80 acres of forest across Rock Creek Park. The reappearance of mayapples and other spring ephemeral wildflowers offers hope for our fragile forests. Learn more about our mini-oases below and volunteer with us soon to further improve the park’s forest.
Resilience Throughout the Watershed
The Conservancy works throughout the Rock Creek watershed to create more Rock Creek-friendly landscapes and practices. These include additional forest restoration, additions of native plants by thousands of Rock Creek stewards, as well as stormwater management that provide pockets of green space while reducing pollution to Rock Creek and its tributaries.
Resilience Restoration Sites
With support from the Inflation Reduction Act and local philanthropists, the Conservancy and the National Park Service are testing the framework’s strategies at three pilot sites that add up to over 100 acres of forests.
Explore Rock Creek's Forest
The Rock Creek Forest Restoration project in iNaturalist catalogs observations of plants and wildlife in these special places. If you are walking along the trails, please add your observations.
Peek into the interior of the forest via observations logged by Conservancy staff and volunteers.
Funding for Forest Resilience
We are grateful to the past and present funders of Forest Resilience in Rock Creek Park.
This work has been made possible in part by the support of:
Individual contributors
Inflation Reduction Act
Crimsbonbridge Foundation
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant #77557
National Park Service Challenge Cost Share program