Certified Wildlife Habitat®

by the National Wildlife Federation

Review the Garden for Wildlife checklist to support a healthy ecosystem in your own backyard, project site, or community space.

Homegrown National Park®

Join the map and commit to supporting biodiversity! This is a grassroots effort, where Doug Tallamy stated: “Our National Parks, no matter how grand in scale are too small and separated from one another to preserve species to the levels needed. Thus, the concept for Homegrown National Park, a bottom-up call-to-action to restore habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, extending national parks to our yards and communities.” According to their website, their "initial goal is 20 million acres of native plantings in the U.S. This represents approximately 1/2 of the green lawns of privately-owned properties."

Pollinator Pathway®

"Community Pollinator Pathway projects are organized by volunteers from town conservation organizations (listed on each town's page) working together to establish pollinator-friendly habitat and food sources for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinating insects and wildlife along a series of continuous corridors. Most native bees have a range of about 750 meters, so the goal is to connect properties that are no farther apart than that. ​Without pollinators, we can’t feed ourselves. Pollination enables the plants in our yards, parks, farms and orchards to reproduce." Source: pollinator-pathway.org

International Dark Sky Places Certifications and DarkSky Approved Program

The International Dark Sky Places program offers multiple certifications including International Dark Sky Communities, Parks, Sanctuaries, Reserves, and Urban Night Sky Places. The DarkSky Approved Program is available for products, designs, and projects. For information on lighting ordinances visit here. To learn more about DarkSky approved products and companies visit here.

WEDG®
Waters Edge Design Guide - A Waterfront Alliance Program

"WEDG is the gold standard for waterfront resilience and risk reduction. It also maximizes the benefits for ecology and access by inspiring innovation at the water’s edge. WEDG is a tool for designers, developers, risk and financial professionals, students and educators, as well as communities."
Source: waterfrontalliance.org

SITES v2

The Sustainable SITES Initiative™

According to usgbc.org, "The Sustainable SITES Initiative aims to weave the development of healthy natural ecosystems with the landscape of daily human activity, via the spaces and places we inhabit, by providing a systematic, comprehensive set of guidelines to model development practices after healthy systems and processes." Additionally, sustainablesites.org shares some history behind the development. It notes that "from 2006-2014, a collaborative, interdisciplinary effort led by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden developed the Sustainable SITES Initiative and the resulting SITES v2 Rating System."

Bee City USA® and Bee Campus USA

Initiatives of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

As stated on their website, the U.S. is "home to just over 3,600 native (wild) bee species such as bumble bees, leafcutter bees, sweat bees, mason bees, longhorn bees, and mining bees. Native pollinators are particularly important because they evolved alongside native plants and in many cases are the most effective pollinators — and in a few cases, the only pollinators. Pollinators are keystone species in essentially every terrestrial ecosystem on earth, assisting in plant reproduction and supporting other species of wildlife. Pollinators touch our lives in numerous ways each day, including being responsible for approximately one third of the food and drink we consume.... Thinking globally and acting locally, Bee City USA provides a framework for communities to come together to conserve native pollinators by providing them with healthy habitat that is rich in a variety of native plants, provides nest sites, and is protected from pesticides."
Source: beecityusa.org.

Firewise USA®

"The national Firewise USA recognition program provides a collaborative framework to help neighbors in a geographic area get organized, find direction, and take action to increase the ignition resistance of their homes and community and to reduce wildfire risks at the local level. Any community that meets a set of voluntary criteria on an annual basis and retains an 'In Good Standing Status' may identify itself as being a Firewise® Site. The Firewise USA® program is administered by NFPA® and is co-sponsored by the USDA Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters."

Source: nfpa.org