How Urban Forest Managers Evaluate Management and Governance Challenges in Their Decision-Making

Abstract

Decisions about urban forests are critical to urban liveability and resilience. This study aimed to evaluate the range of positions held by urban forest managers from local governments in the state of Victoria, Australia, regarding the management and governance challenges that affect their decision-making. This study was based on a Q-method approach, a procedure that allows researchers to evaluate the range of positions that exist about a topic in a structured manner based on the experiences of a wide group of people. We created statements on a wide range of urban forest management and governance challenges and asked urban forest managers to rate their level of agreement with these statements via an online survey. Managers generally agreed about the challenges posed by urban development and climate change for implementing local government policies on urban forest protection and expansion. However, there were divergent views about how effective solutions based on increasing operational capacities, such as increasing budgets and personnel, could address these challenges. For some managers, it was more effective to improve critical governance challenges, such as inter-departmental and inter-municipal coordination, community engagement, and addressing the culture of risk aversion in local governments. Urban forest regional strategies aimed at coordinating management and governance issues across cities should build on existing consensus on development and environmental threats and address critical management and governance issues not solely related to local government operational capacity.

Conserving urban biodiversity: Current practice, barriers, and enablers

“…The barriers and enablers to action were grouped into five themes: project management, capacity, stakeholder values, organizational support, and ecological context (Table 1, Table S3). These aligned with the broader literature, including the importance of data and resources, policy and organizational support, and expertise (Kay et al, 2022;Muñoz-Erickson et al, 2016;Ordóñez et al, 2020;Stokes et al, 2010). Enablers were described in response to a particular barrier (e.g., project management to reduce risks), or simply as the optimum conditions to support action (e.g., serendipity, having a good-quality site).…”

“…Many interviewees recognized the need for greater knowledge sharing, expressing curiosity at how other managers had overcome barriers. Indeed, cities research emphasizes the need for flexible solutions and generalizable processes that can be applied across contexts, and the absence of a “one size fits all” solution in urban environments (Knapp et al., 2020; Muñoz‐Erickson et al., 2016; Nilon et al., 2017; Ordóñez et al., 2020). To bridge this gap, we synthesized the interactions between barriers and enablers, treating the themes as leverage points to map possible pathways to urban conservation action (Figure 2).…”

A global systematic review of forest management institutions: towards a new research agenda

“…In all these, deforestation persisted in the midst of lost and/or bypassed institutions (Carvalho et al 2019 ). In Australia, divergent views characterized the seeking of solutions to enhance inter-departmental and inter-municipal coordination (Ordóñez et al 2020 ). Positive ecological outcomes were significantly reported for Africa (forest or biodiversity protection/conservation, improved forest condition and surface water quality, sustainable forest or ecosystem management, planting of timber and fruit trees) and Latin America (fostering forest conservation, stabilization and/or decrease of deforestation, sustainable forest management).…”

Construction and Proactive Management Led to Tree Removals on an Urban College Campus

“…Indeed, many urban forest managers recognize the conflicts between promoting tree canopy and construction pressure [79,80], and municipal tree ordinances and by-laws can restrict or compensate for tree losses during redevelopment and construction [35,41,81,82], and can require the preservation of tree rooting areas near construction zones [83]. During most of our study period, tree removals on the Penn campus were not tightly regulated by formal policies, but campus landscape personnel nonetheless enacted strong oversight, retaining trees when feasible, and regularly replacing removed trees.…”