Posted by Sue Landsman on Jun.11, 2009

ⓒ iStockPhoto - brytta

Urban Forestry sounds like a contradiction in terms. Cities aren’t known for their expanses of nature short of small parks and populations of pigeons, but it’s time to take a new look at their potential. A branch of forestry called Urban Forestry is looking at the trees that grow in our urban areas as a potentially rich and valuable ecosystem. You might see only a few trees in front of your office as pleasant decoration, or a local park as a great place for your kids to see green grass. It’s entirely likely though that you haven’t given the little oases of nature around you much thought other than a little bit of gratitude.

The US Forest Service, on the other hand, considers these small places vastly important. It has created the Urban and Community Forestry program to focus on stewarding the natural resources in our cities. These resources include parks, roadside planting, public gardens, wetlands, and any other area where trees coexist with the urban environment. Even the small trees in the middle of the sidewalk have a function.

The benefits of city trees are many: they cool the sidewalks and save energy, provide a pleasant place to walk, take up storm water runoff, and do their usual job of improving air quality. Having tree-lined streets also has more far-reaching results: it’s been shown that trees along the street ease the traffic, increase real estate values, and also improve people’s heath by encouraging exercise and psychological well being. In addition, trees affect people’s perception of the value of their communities: a poor, run-down community can be improved by plantings that make people feel better about where they live.

But even the simple benefits of trees are crucial to a city. Trees shade buildings during the heat of summer and block cold, blustery winds during winter, decreasing the need for air-conditioning and heat. They also absorb pollutants through their leaves and bind other pollutants on the leaf surfaces, making the city safer for its inhabitants. Trees even aid in maintaining the infrastructure of an urban area. According to the Forest Service, a typical city forest will retain 10 million gallons of rainwater per year that would otherwise run off into the sewers and possibly overload the system.

The Center for Urban Forest Research at the US Forest Service is studying a wide range of ways in which trees and humans coexist in urban areas. Keeping these natural areas functioning in their unusual context is an area that’s receiving more and more focus. There are many challenges not just to the trees, but to the people and buildings that surround them. Trees, and their roots, keep growing, and often pose a threat to building foundations and sidewalks.

If you know anything about ecology, you’ll know that one of the problems many species of birds and other animals face is the disconnection of territories and the decrease in nesting areas. One good thing that urban foresters do is plan green infrastructure so that vital wildlife corridors are maintained and that there are enough contiguous habitats so that species can survive. Many species can only continue to breed if there is a large and diverse enough population, and often this is not the case in isolated pockets such as housing developments or local parks. Urban planning that accommodates the needs of various species of animals and plants as well as human desires can benefit everyone.

But urban forestry isn’t only for the professionals. One of the big challenges to urban forestry is that many of the trees planted in cities are planted improperly or don’t get any regular maintenance. Because of this they either die early or just fail to thrive. The Forest Service has put out a Tree Owner’s Manual, available online, that you can use to help take care of a tree near you. You can find the manual at http://na.fs.fed.us/urban/treeownersmanual/. You can also download a fact sheet about Urban Forestry at http://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/supporting_docs/TreesforPeople.pdf.

There are many things you can do for a city tree or local park, such as watering parched trees during a drought or pruning and tending a wounded branch. Even if you don’t do something directly, you can report any important information such as damage, rot, or infestation to your local authorities.

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Posted under GDM News & Politics, Living.