Urban Forestry Internship

The City of Lynchburg is currently searching for one (1) student to participate in our summer Urban Forestry Internship! The summer internship program provides participants with the opportunity to explore multiple aspects of forestry, to include GIS, pruning, planting plans, tree assessments, and inventory. A few projects that the City is currently working on includes structural pruning of 600 trees in a downtown landscape ($100K project) and replacing 250 street trees ($85K project)! We also recently inventoried over 12,000 trees and 720 empty planting sites!

The internship program is open to current college students majoring in forestry or arboriculture. Interns will work Monday through Friday from 8:30 am until 5:00 pm, unless hours are adjusted by the site supervisor for special projects. Interns will not work on scheduled city holidays (Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, and Labor Day).    

The intern will be asked to develop a research question at the beginning of the internship program that they will explore independently throughout the internship and will present what they have learned to City leaders at the conclusion of the internship.

Interns may choose to earn college credit for participating in the internship as deemed appropriate by the participating educational institution. Interns will be responsible for getting the internship approved by their college or university.      

Essential Duties
The following are examples of the work duties that interns can expect while participating in the urban forestry internship program:

Assist with various urban forestry program tasks including responding to citizen concerns, maintaining tree inventory, and coordinating tree replacement programs.
Assist with the maintenance of the street tree and computer automated inventory system.
Utilizes computer software applications, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and GIS applications.
Reviews plans and coordinates neighborhood planting projects.
Assist with the annual street tree planting plan.
Advises and participates in planting, care and maintenance of all city trees.
Assists with estimates of damage to City trees when struck by private vehicles.
Assist in the processing of tree work permit for work by companies and citizens on City trees.
Inspects forestry field work and gives technical advice and assistance to field employees; checks for conformance to work plans and orders.
Handles citizen's response relating to trees and weed complaints.
Assists with presentations to civic groups, organizations, Tree Stewards, etc.
Assists with tree related component reviews of site plans to insure conformance with City codes and ordinances.