In the next decade, the Asia-Pacific region will become predominantly urbanized. Urban concentration can produce growth and break the cycle of poverty and deterioration, provided that the problems generated by dense concentration of population and activities are rectified or limited within the context of the dynamic of urbanization. Forestry and related professionals can actively facilitate local initiatives to mitigate these urban problems or risking to become a marginal professional group in development cooperation in the region in the next century. |
In the Asia-Pacific region for the first time in its history, rapid growth of population and its concentration in cities around, constitutes the crucial element affecting the long-term outlook for the people in the region and beyond. For better or for worse, the development of contemporary societies in the region will largely depend on understanding and managing the growth of cities. Urban areas will increasingly become the test beds for
· the adequacy of political institutions,
· the performance of government agencies, and
· the effectiveness of programmes to combat social exclusion and to promote economic development.
Historically, the decision to direct most international development assistance to rural rather than urban areas has also much to do with the traditionally negative image of the city and its impact on rural areas. This image has only recently been under reconsideration in international cooperation policies and those adopted by many governments in the region.
In this context urban greening is increasingly acknowledged as one development tool. In current urban greening initiatives professional foresters still play a minor role.
The question how, where and at what pace urban forestry is developing in the region will depend on the degree of the pressure to change the professional forestry profile and the speed forestry professionals are willing to react and adapt to this new demand.
To better understand the direction forestry might evolve, imagine that it is the year 2010 and one would observe a presentation of a case study of a successful urban forestry development in a poor neighbourhood (Box 14) in a lecture on forest history of the last century. Students would probably not question if it was the right decision at the late 90's to reallocate resources from rural to urban forestry. Students in 2010 studying forest history of the last century, would not only learn the insight in the 70s clarified that forestry is about people, and only about trees as long as they are serving the needs of the people. Serving the requirements of an increasingly urbanizing world would be regarded as a logical further step, in a people-centred forestry approach.
As increasingly more people are living in urban concentrations in the region, the demand of local initiatives and urban planners to improve the quality of life by applying ecological principles is growing. Technical options, which are a win-win situation for both ecology and economy are increasingly acknowledged. In this context multi-functional urban vegetation resource management and conservation is increasingly becoming one key element in the search of designing cities by nature.
Box 14. An urban forestry success story of a poor neighbourhood seen from the year 2010
|
A poor neighbourhood, somewhere in Asia, was a typical Settlement of Despair in the early 90s. People were struggling for survival and basic needs, living in a nearly treeless hot environment, faced with problems of floods, unclean drinking water contaminated by waste, and no recreation facilities. Also living conditions were very harsh local people and their leaders had a vision to improve the neighbourhood. Tree planting was more than a symbol of hope to invest in the future. Most of the residents of this unauthorized settlement came from rural areas nearby. In the area they migrated from, a million-dollar social forestry project was implemented, with the aim to stop migration. However, migration still continued. Realizing this, it was a wise decision to re-allocate part of resources of the rural project to an urban greening project in the neighbourhood. This project provided the state-of-art on urban greening, thus helping the neighbourhood to avoid costly mistakes in urban greening. Residents proud of their achievements called their neighbourhood Tree City. Children living in this neighbourhood of hope in the year 2010 cannot imagine a life without basic infrastructure, including trees. For this kids multi-functional neighbourhood parks used for treatment of waste water and its reuse, flood control, gardening and recreation, are as "natural" as greenways connected with this parks and all streets were aligned with trees. |
This trend of a search for design towns and cities by nature has basically two implications for foresters working in the region:
(i) ignoring this trend, thus risking to become a marginal professional group in development cooperation in the medium-term
(ii) or actively formulating an extended mandate and vision, and lobbying, communicating and allocating resources for this implementation of this vision, thus becoming significant actors in modelling the human settlements for the new millennium.
Forestry history has shown that lobbying by non-foresters committed to forestry and people, cooperating with far-sighted internationally reputed foresters, could facilitate the radical change required in the forestry education, training and work in the 70s. At this period it was clearly recognized in development cooperation that forestry is about people, and only about forests and trees, as long as serving the people's need. Since at that time most people in developing countries were living in the rural areas, the rural focus was appropriate. As a result of this shift of perspective in forestry is that the basket of technical options (agroforestry land use, multipurpose species, etc.) has increased dramatically and our understanding about the relationship and dependency between rural people and forests has improved very much, too. With the trend of urbanization, again it is overdue, to make the next radical shift in the professional education, training and work by a strong focus of the needs and values of urban societies in the region.
Once an agreement of an urban forestry vision (Example see Box 15) have been reached in development cooperation, i.e. what to do and where to set priories in forestry, many options exist how to adopt this vision to the local situation.
Diverse ongoing urban forestry initiatives and practices clearly demonstrate the urban forestry concept in action. These diverse approaches provide an appropriate framework about the benefits, challenges and actions required to facilitate the implementation of an urban forestry vision 2010. Once, urban forestry is on the top agenda of urban development, a new forestry boom similar like the one when tropical forests were identified as a top priority, is likely to occur.
Box 15. Urban Forestry Vision 2010 for greener towns and cities in the region
|
In the Asia-Pacific region towns and cities establish trees as one vital component of the basic urban infrastructure and manage urban forests like any other part of infrastructure by the year 2010. |
Experience from other parts of the world on good urban forest practices and successful programme approaches can help planners and urban greening initiatives to avoid costly trials and optimise use of scare resources. Region-wide training courses and shared research facilities could greatly benefit all the regional cities.
Well-planned urban forests are essential for cities offering a high quality of life. Equally important is to integrate urban forestry into a wide variety of urban development projects including sanitation, drainage, housing, and infrastructure. Such large urban projects hold much promise for quickly expanding urban greening in the region. Forestry projects must encourage the strengthening of local rural-urban linkages in a complementary manner that benefits both sides.
The following are basic recommendations in order to boost the development, management and conservation of urban forests. They require local action by the countries of the region as well as reliable assistance and support from their international partners from outside the region:
1. Encourage the strengthening of rural-urban linkages in a complementary manner that benefits both rural as well as urban populations, thus supporting a sustainable and more socially just development process; overcoming the negative attitude towards the urbanization process, and actively assist in solving urban problems.
2. Support and strengthen local initiatives in design, conservation and management of urban forests through interactive participation of all stakeholders. In more affluent cities the focus must be on poor neighbourhoods, focusing on vulnerable groups with a sensitive gender perspective.
3. Allocate significant resources to multipurpose urban forestry with the aim of making trees compatible and functional for urban design and meeting the basic needs and values of local communities;
4. Protect existing urban trees, rehabilitate what has been destroyed, and plan for the judicious utilization of resources for sustainable development.
5. Quantify urban forestry related targets, integrate monitoring and evaluation systems in healthy cities to assess urban greening related indicators; include urban forest resources in (global) forest resource assessments;
6. Integrate urban forestry into urban development projects, e.g. sanitation, housing, transportation and infrastructure;
7. Facilitate sustainability of urban forestry investment for long periods of time (programme approach, financing in phases);
8. Encourage the use of a wide variety of multipurpose species with focus on native plants for biodiversity objectives;
9. Include a priority research agenda for urban forestry: participatory urban forestry, in-depth investigation of the relative importance of the environmental and productive functions of urban forests for different social groups and ecozones; validate urban forests through the identification, selection and trials of multipurpose trees and shrubs;
10. Increase dramatically training opportunities and develop curricula for multipurpose urban forestry with regard to environmental and professional education.
11. Develop guidelines, manuals and state-of the art fact sheets of good urban forestry practices; and then disseminate materials to urban decision-makers and donor agencies.
12. Provide multiple sources of finance with strong participation of the private and non-governmental sector; secure at least two sources of sustained finance, and where appropriate incorporate tree budgets into regular municipal budget lines (e.g. street trees);
13. Promote the creation of urban greening research and development networks (at both national and regional levels) and facilitate exchange with other urban initiatives.
