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2. URBAN FORESTRY DEFINED

The broadest definitions regard urban forests as the entire area influenced and/or utilised by the urban population.3 According to such definitions, urban forests include natural woodlands within the zone of influence of urbanization that traditionally is the realm of rural forestry. Some believe that urban forestry's main focus has to be on the portion of the forest found within the built environment and that the task of urban forestry is to make trees compatible and functional in an urban environment.

This paper uses urban greening as a comprehensive term comprising all urban vegetation management (green spaces or urban vegetated areas) including farming and forestry. Urban forestry is considered as planning, management and conservation of trees, forests and related vegetation to create or add value to the local community in an urban area.4 This narrow definition includes all trees and related vegetation in and around places where people live and deliberately focuses on trees in the built environment and excludes urban farming in the sense of food production occurring within settlements. Although urban forest comprises natural woodlands within the zone of influence of urbanization (covered by conventional forestry) the focus here is on the urban forest found within the built environment.

In the wealthier developed countries, urban forestry focuses on amenities and environmental benefits (Nilsson & Randrup 1997). In poorer countries urban forestry must first pay attention on assisting in fulfilling basic necessities (Kuchelmeister 1997, Lanly 1997).

While acknowledging the need for continuity with rural forestry, it would be a mistake to fit urban forests into established forestry models: urban planning and zoning systems must provide the framework in which forestry for cities should be considered.

Figure 2. Relationship of various resource professions to the forest continuum

Forest continuum

 
 

Rural

Ex urban

Suburban

Urban

             

Arboriculture

           
             

Recreation

           
             

Landscape architecture

           
             

Wildlife management

           
             

Forestry

Rural Forestry Urban Forestry

             
 

Major interest

       
           
 

Minor interest

       

Source: Miller 1997

         

The types of urban forest range from undisturbed natural woodland to open areas nearly void of trees. The urban forest is also in a constant state of flux.

For many decades urban forestry has struggled for an identity separate from that of arboriculture and horticulture.5 Urban vegetation management is still being debated as to whether it falls within the scope of landscape horticulture or forestry. Although arboriculture traditionally focuses on the management of individual trees and urban forestry on tree populations, the lines between the two have blurred (Ball 1997).6 A further confusion arises because many urban foresters use "urban greening" and "urban forestry" interchangeably (Kuchelmeister 1997). The prevailing relationship of various professions on the rural-urban forestry continuum is presented in Figure 2.

Urban forestry is a modern approach to urban tree management encompassing long-term planning, interdisciplinary professional coordination and local participation. It is aimed at securing the ongoing health and vitality of the urban forest, and hence, the sustained delivery of benefits for both current and future generations of urban dwellers.

3 For example, see definition by Dunster & Dunster 1996. The question whether the urban forest should extend beyond the edge of urbanized areas is somewhat problematic. There have been liberal interpretations of the distance over which urban activities influence forests, but these do not justify the application of a new label to forests that can be understood and managed using accepted concepts and methods (Rowntree 1994).

4 Urban areas are those areas where people live and work. it is the built-up or densely populated area containing the city proper; suburbs, and continuously settled commuter areas. There are great differences among countries in the definition of what constitutes an urban place (ref. to Footnote 2). Since the line between rural and urban areas is arbitrary, it can be hardly drawn, and, worse, it is in a flux, no distinctions between urban and peri-urban forestry is suggested anymore (Tinker 1994). Communities are socially identified groups (Coder 1996), they are first of all interest groups or organizations with declared issues. The community is not a homogeneous group and certainly not a spatially or temporarily fixed group, their boundaries change with issues (and it is issues that make the glue to hold the community together) (IUCN 1994). Values are always associated with a combination of tangible and intangible qualities people appreciate.

5 One reason for the merely modest urban forestry research programme in Los Banos, Philippines is that urban vegetation (forestry) management is still being debated as to whether falling within the scope of landscape horticulture and not forestry (Palijon 1997).

6 Arborists manage individual trees and urban foresters manage tree populations; at an individual tree level urban forestry and arboriculture are synonymous (Miller 1989).

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