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  • Apr 23 Thursday

    Canopy Con 26

    Fayette County Extension Office
    $60
    08:30 AM - 04:00 PM on Thu, 23 Apr 2026

    Urban Forest Initiative presents CANOPY CON 26, Kentucky's premier conference on urban and community forestry. Join us Thursday, April 23, 8:30am–4:00pm at the Fayette County Extension Office.

    This year's theme, "Healthy Trees – Healthy People," invites us to explore the ecological and economic benefits trees provide, focusing on the connections between urban tree canopy, equity, and human mental and physical health.

    You'll hear from nationally recognized experts, engage in hands-on field demonstrations, and discover practical strategies for translating research into action.

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  • Apr 24 Friday

    Lecture by Dr. Geoffrey Donovan: "Using Natural Experiments to Investigate the Relationship Between Urban Trees and Health"

    Kincaid Auditorium, Gatton College of Business and Economics building, University of Kentucky
    02:30 PM - 04:30 PM on Fri, 24 Apr 2026

    Urban Forest Initiative, along with the Department of Economics in the Gatton College of Business and Economics, present a lecture by Dr. Geoffrey Donovan (U.S. Forest Service, ret.) on the surprising health benefits of trees.

    Dr. Donovan's talk is titled "Using Natural Experiments to Investigate the Relationship Between Urban Trees and Health."

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    Details

    Friday, April 24, Gatton College of Business and Economics

    Reception: 2:30 p.m., 1st Floor Atrium (please RSVP by Friday, April 17)

    Lecture: 3:30 p.m., Kincaid Auditorium

    Please RSVP for the reception

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    About Dr. Donovan

    Dr. Donovan received his PhD is forest economics from Colorado State University in 2001. He then worked for 23 years as an economist for the USDA Forest Service in Alaska and Oregon. Currently he’s the owner of Ash and Elm Consulting, which is focused on making the business case for urban trees.

    His primary research focus has been quantifying the benefits of urban trees. These have ranged from intuitive benefits—reduced summertime cooling costs and increased home values, for example—to less intuitive benefits such as crime reduction. He has worked extensively on the relationship between trees and public health finding that mothers with trees around their homes are less likely to have underweight babies, and when trees are killed by an invasive pest, more people die from cardiovascular and lower-respiratory diseases. Currently, he is focusing on how exposure to plant diversity may protect against a range of immune diseases.

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