Updated 4/24/2026
How, you might reasonably ask, can our community possibly hope to rescue a million trees from vines plus control the worst of the other invasive plant infestations in Fairfax/Falls Church? It won’t be easy, but we think it can be done!
Overall approach
- Engage all stakeholders
- Identify barriers and find solutions.
- Think on a county-wide scale while implementing on a more manageable scale.
- Create collaborations of interested people within each local area (town or other geographic unit) to strategize for that area.
- Encourage communities to adopt the public lands (parks, Board of Supervisors land, roadside rights of way, etc), furnishing and training a vigorous volunteer force while raising money to pay for professional services for places or plant species that are not suitable for volunteers.
Specific tactics
Survey and monitor
- Seek out and map those serious infestations. Want to help? Click here for details. No experience required!
- Measure progress, display on maps or dashboards.
Engage the public
- Maximize use of government channels to reach the entire population.
- Have a Community Representative in every neighborhood (thousands!) to relay information to their neighbors. Learn more here.
- Use our website, social media and other publicity methods to provide locally-relevant information and resources.
- Offer more mini grants to help jumpstart management plans by communities (as money becomes available).
Provide expert advice
- Offer site visits from expert volunteers to community associations, faith communities, commercial properties, and professional landscaping companies.
- Encourage homeowners to take advantage of the NVBA Wildlife Sanctuary Program.
Create teams to strategize in every area
- Bring together Community Representatives and trained invasives removal volunteers to collaborate.
- Map out every bad infestation within an area (such as a town), figure out who the landowners are, and approach them to see what help they need.
- Encourage community tree rescue events, where neighbors help neighbors.
Develop the workforce
- Professionals - create a certificate course to train lawn-and-landscape companies.
- Volunteers
- Recruit those who enjoy public lands to rescue the trees where they recreate: walkers, bikers, athletes, birders, etc.
- Connect people to the invasive removal volunteer events of the numerous partnering organizations.
- Expand the FCPA Tree Rescuers Program so there is at least one person working in every park, people who then know how to help in their neighborhoods.
Develop funding sources
- Invite individual donors to contribute
- Encourage businesses to adopt parks and roadside rights of way.
- Encourage communities to adopt nearby parks, rights of way, and commercial areas.
- Seek grant money to distribute as incentive grants to communities.
- Alert the public to the benefits of creating a service district to levy a fee for invasives control to create a dedicated funding source and enable strategic multi-year planning.
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