Urban forests are important components of societal interactions with nature. We focused on urban forest patches, a distinct and underexplored subset of the urban forest that spans land uses and ...ownerships, and requires silvicultural practices to address their unique biophysical characteristics and management regimes. Our goal was to elucidate multi-scalar urban forest patch governance arrangements as they translated to on-the-ground management in four urban areas (Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore) within the eastern United States. A transdisciplinary knowledge co-production framework was used to guide identification of the prominent management challenge or dilemma motivating change to forest patch management in each location, and to describe the dynamic interplay of decision-making and governance processes across locations as they advanced toward desired forest conditions. A common management goal existed across all four locations: multi-age, structurally complex forests dominated by regionally native species. Ecological and social concerns affected by local context and city capacity served as starting points prompting management action and new collaborations. Disparate governance arrangements including top-down municipal resources, regional conservation facilitated by landowners, and grass-roots community-driven stewardship led to diverse support-building processes and innovative strategies that served as forces initiating and shaping new management actions. Science and iterative learning and adaptation influenced change in all locations, reinforcing new management arrangements and practices. Among the four study areas, the earliest management of urban forest patches started in the 1980 s, historically lacking embeddedness in urban forest management more broadly, and experiencing challenges with integration into existing governance infrastructure. Ultimately, new management and governance approaches to urban forest patches in all four study areas have evolved uniquely and organically, driven by place-based historical legacies and ongoing socio-ecological feedbacks. The generalization of findings for broader urban forest management guidelines, such as for trees and park, would lead to misguided outcomes.
•Governance structure and processes shaping urban forest patches are underexplored.•We described and compared urban forest patch governance for four US cities.•Various management challenges inspired different actions directed at a similar goal.•Governance processes varied by legacies, actors, ownerships, and drivers of flows.•Urban forest patch nuances included resources, recency, embeddedness, and guidance.
This Special Issue of Forests explores the role of soundscapes in urban forested areas. It is comprised of 11 papers involving soundscape studies conducted in urban forests from Asia and Africa. This ...collection contains six research fields: (1) the ecological patterns and processes of forest soundscapes; (2) the boundary effects and perceptual topology; (3) natural soundscapes and human health; (4) the experience of multi-sensory interactions; (5) environmental behavior and cognitive disposition; and (6) soundscape resource management in forests.
•An understanding of urban forest governance from the perspective of municipal managers is limited.•Interview data was collected from urban forest managers in local governments in Melbourne, ...Australia.•Challenges for managers’ decisions: inter-departmental coordination, community views, culture of risk aversion.•Some other challenges varied across urban centres.•Challenges of inner centres: lack of space, public consultation, and new developments•Challenges of outer/regional centres: urban expansion, active use of greenspace, and lack of data.
Awareness of the benefits of urban trees has led many cities to develop ambitious targets to increase tree numbers and canopy cover. Policy instruments that guide the planning of cities recognize the need for new governance arrangements to implement this agenda. Urban forests are greatly influenced by the decisions of municipal managers, but there is currently no clear understanding of how municipal managers find support to implement their decisions via new governance arrangements. To fill this knowledge gap, we collected empirical data through interviews with 23 urban forest municipal managers in 12 local governments in Greater Melbourne and regional Victoria, Australia, and analysed these data using qualitative interpretative methods through a governance lens. The goal of this was to understand the issues and challenges, stakeholders, resources, processes, and rules behind the decision-making of municipal managers. Municipal managers said that urban densification and expansion were making it difficult for them to implement their strategies to increase tree numbers and canopy cover. The coordination of stakeholders was more important for managers to find support to implement their decisions than having a bigger budget. The views of the public or wider community and a municipal government culture of risk aversion were also making it difficult for municipal managers to implement their strategies. Decision-making priorities and processes were not the same across urban centres. Lack of space to grow trees in new developments, excessive tree removal, and public consultation, were ideas more frequently raised in inner urban centres, while urban expansion, increased active use of greenspaces, and lack of data/information about tree assets were concerns for outer and regional centres. Nonetheless, inter-departmental coordination was a common theme shared among all cities. Strengthening coordination processes is an important way for local governments to overcome these barriers and effectively implement their urban forest strategies.
•Urban forest management in Canada can be understood via management plans (UFMPs).•Canadian UFMPs are not specific or operational in most ecological, social, and economic management ...themes.•Nativeness, connectivity, climate change, community stewardship, and economic incentives need more attention.
Urban forests are an integral part of urban ecosystems and quality of city life. The urban forest in Canada is highly valued, underscoring the importance of devising schemes for sustainable urban forest management. During the last decade, many urban forest management plans (UFMPs) have been prepared. This study analyses 14 Canadian UFMPs published in this period. We found that most of the UFMPs are dominated by an approach that relies on single-tree maintenance, canopy-cover enhancement, tree-diversity enhancement, and planting-oriented educational programmes. These activities dominate the operational features of the plans, while other ecological, social, and economic considerations lack specificity and operational clarity. A suite of best management practices based on UFMP documentation is included here.
•Resident Association Executive Members’ knowledge of urban forest, policy and process contributes to urban forest governance.•Knowledge of threats to neighbourhood urban forest (NUF) health ...motivates people to engage in urban forest governance.•Knowledge sharing is important to sustain engagement in urban forest governance.
Urban forests, integral to a city’s critical infrastructure, are traditionally under the mandate of local governments, yet in reality, the decision-making for their conservation is influenced by a myriad of factors operating at the neighbourhood level. In some neighbourhoods, decisions are heavily influenced by formal Resident Associations (RAs). Using a case study approach, in-depth interviews were conducted with selected engaged and committed RA members in Mississauga, Canada to determine: 1) What is the role of urban forest knowledge in motivating people to engage with their local community group, i.e., how does knowledge play a role in developing a critical consciousness that leads to action? 2) How does an individual’s knowledge shape strategies used by the community group? and 3) How can we characterize the knowledge of community group leaders in terms of urban forest governance? Our study shows that knowledge is embodied in all roles that RA executive members take on and that it is key in motivating their engagement. The critical role of ‘knowing ‘was also clear in the ability of RAs to develop and establish local-level strategies that help conserve urban forests. Based on our research, it is clear that RAs and local governments (individually and/or collectively) can enhance the knowledge of residents at the neighbourhood level to improve engagement. We recommend that RA members engage via an ongoing collaborative knowledge building process to become better equipped at confronting urban forest management practices and impacting urban forest governance.
Urban tree management in England is led by local governments who may describe their policies and practices in a publicly accessible document, termed an urban tree strategy. To understand the role of ...such documents in urban tree management, this research investigated their prevalence, production, content and use in England. Concurrently, to understand the "life-cycle" of a tree strategy - the processes underlying the production and use of strategies - we conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 local governments. We found 143 of 353 (41%) English local governments had a publicly accessible urban tree strategy. We conducted a review of the content of half (72) of these strategies. We found tree strategies to be highly variable but diverged into two main forms, the 'strategy' form and the 'policy' form. The former is a holistic and forward-looking document, the latter a focused document centred on essential management and legislated duties. The interviews highlighted lack of time, knowledge, money, and/or political buy-in as barriers to strategy production. The variability in the existence and content of strategies could lead to differing urban forest management practices across England, which are not in line with recent national environmental objectives and recommended guidance.
A arborização em praças muitas vezes não é feita corretamente e estudos relacionados ao perfil florístico, além de auxiliar a gestão pública, permite que haja o estabelecimento de um banco de dados ...que colabore para manutenção, planejamento e manejo da arborização. Assim, o presente trabalho visa a realização de um inventário florístico e fitossociológico nas praças da zona urbana da cidade de Iguatu-CE para contribuir com a demanda da arborização das praças na cidade. O levantamento ocorreu na zona urbana da sede do município, tendo sido realizado pelo método de inventário quali-quantitativo do tipo censo, nas 31 praças existentes. Foram catalogados 763 indivíduos e 93 espécies; as famílias com maior número de espécies são: Arecaceae (19) e Fabaceae (11); o número de espécies exóticas sobressai na paisagem urbana principalmente Azadirachta indica (espécie exótica invasora). Os dados expressaram uma grande variedade de espécies, além da alta proporção de espécies exóticas (74.96%). A similaridade florística indica que as Praças 14 (grupo 1) 29 e 27 (grupo 2) e 21 (grupo 3) apresentam baixa similaridade florísticas e compartilham poucas espécies. Devido ao elevado número de espécies exóticas é sugerido a substituição de certos indivíduos por plantas nativas, especialmente aquelas que não se encontram em bom estado, visa-se, assim, a valorização da flora local para o bom planejamento urbano, preservação da biota local e a conservação do patrimônio público.
•Urban residents were interviewed about tree planting and removal motivations.•Residents plant trees primarily for aesthetic reasons, not for ecosystem services.•Most species are selected for their ...low maintenance, evergreen or native status.•Many healthy tree removals occur due to insufficient information when planting.
Drivers at multiple scales influence the management of trees, grass and other vegetation in residential yards. While significant attention has been paid to the varied drivers of residential lawn care and herbaceous vegetation, less attention has been directed at urban tree management on residential property, particularly at the finer household-scale. This study examines residents’ tree planting and removal decisions in Mississauga (Ontario, Canada) to better understand the way household-scale actions shape urban forests. Analysis of survey responses and interviews indicate that residents are activity managing their trees. Tree planting and species selection decisions were primarily motivated by aesthetic preferences and maintenance concerns. Additionally, nearly all of the motivating factors identified by residents were related to personal preferences and site-level characteristics as oppose to the ecosystem services highlighted by many researchers and practitioners. Tree removal was most commonly motivated by poor tree health. However, underlying many residents’ decisions were a lack of knowledge about tree care and species characteristics, which contributed to a number of healthy tree removals. Ultimately, residents’ focus on aesthetics is out of alignment with municipal plans that are frequently based on ecosystem service provision, while desire for low maintenance trees and lack of tree care knowledge raises concerns about the long-term sustainability of the urban forest.
This article presents the results of a literature review related to volunteerism in urban forestry in the United States. Themes explored were inductively emergent from the research reviewed and ...included 'volunteer demographics', 'motivations of volunteers', 'benefits of volunteering', 'volunteer engagement and barriers', 'value of volunteering', and 'volunteer recruitment and retention'. Urban forestry volunteers are often motivated by personal, social, and environmental considerations. Volunteers in urban forestry may not be representative of a cross-section of the communities that they are serving, rather they are often middle-aged, well-educated white women. Further research is required both to ascertain barriers to volunteerism and to enhance future volunteer recruitment and retainment efforts. Volunteers in the United States account for 5% of municipal tree care in urban forests - accounting for an estimated $35 million USD in value. Volunteers perform critical urban forestry-related tasks that aim to increase urban tree canopy cover through tree selection and planting efforts. Volunteers encourage urban tree survival by advocating for, as well as performing, important maintenance-related duties including the administration of supplemental watering and urban tree pruning. With proper training and support, volunteers may accurately perform important data collection efforts that may inform management decisions and urban tree care maintenance programmes.
