DATE: Wednesday, September 24, 1997         TAG: 9709240438

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   20 lines

ENVIRONMENTAL OFFICIALS STUDY URBAN FORESTS

Several of the city's top environmental officials spent a week learning to preserve Chesapeake's urban forests at an Atlanta conference, Cities by Nature's Design, organized by the environmental group American Forests.

Representing Chesapeake were Claire R. Askew, director of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Building Maintenance; Miklos Lestyan, city arborist; and Don Marx, program coordinator for Chesapeake Bay Youth Conservation Corps. They and other participants attended workshops on creative municipal funding strategies, local public policy and ecosystem-based management of urban forests.

Lestyan recently received a grant that will allow him to count the number of trees and the percentage of green ``canopy cover'' in Chesapeake.

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