Urban Forestry Management

Urban forestry is a term used to describe the care and management of urban forests. This might include tree populations in urban settings for the purpose of improving the environment in the city but it is not however limited at this. Many would argue that urban forestry is an important part of sustainable forest management in key areas of the planet which advocates the role of trees as a critical part of the urban infrastructure. Those involved in urban forestry, usually referred to as urban foresters, are responsible with planting and maintaining trees, supporting appropriate tree and forest preservation and conducting research and promoting the benefits that trees can provide those living in an urban area, and not only. Urban forestry is a part of forest management that is practiced most commonly by municipal and commercial arborists, foresters, environmental policymakers, consultants, educators, city planners, researchers and even community activists.

The main goal of urban forestry is to understand the public attitudes, perceptions and knowledge as well as to review the agents in change and the expressed needs and concerns of the community. In order for this forest management to be effective, the goals must be compared to a dynamic or temporal description of the resource based from inventory and management objectives.

The function of the urban forestry often involves the dynamic operation of the forest meaning analysing biochemical cycles, gas exchange, competition, succession, regeneration and primary productivity. In urban settings, forest functions are usually interconnected with the environment of humans. Urban forestry usually implies that the trees that will be planted with be firstly carefully selected and then they will be nurtured by people. Generally, trees are planted with a specific intention and this intention may determine the type and species of the tree, its location, and the management activities that will influence its growth as well as the crown dimension.