San Jose, California is known as the “Capital of Silicon Valley” and is one of the world’s leading hubs for technological innovation and environmental leadership.
San Jose’s urban forest consists of more than 1.6 million trees that generate an estimated $239.3 million of ecosystem benefits and property value increases every year. This includes removing 47,000 tons of greenhouse gases from the air, filtering out 140,000 cars’ worth of air pollution, and saving an estimated $77 million worth of annual air conditioning costs through shade and cooling. San Jose is in the process of updating its Community Forest Management Plan, which lays out a vision for increasing urban tree canopy, prioritizing social equity, and securing funding to maintain the urban forest.
San Jose is also investing in watershed-scale efforts to protect nearby natural land. In 2018, voters approved $50 million in bonds to finance flood protection enhancements, which the city has since used to preserve undeveloped forest and California scrubland in the nearby Coyote Valley.
