6.07.00 - Urban forestry

UNIT NOTICEBOARD

2024-02-15

Conference coming up!

Urban Forest Futures New Zealand / Te aka tāngaengae – Pūtaringamotu
Christchurch, New Zealand; 10-11 April 2024

Scion, Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, the University of Canterbury, and Christchurch City Council, in cooperation with IUFRO Research Group 6.07.00 - Urban Forestry, have come together to host the first ever Urban Forest Symposium in New Zealand. Proudly sponsored by Orbica Limited.

Researchers, mana whenua, urban planners and developers, council and government representatives, and relevant stakeholders are invited to join us in discussing how best to address the challenges in establishing and maintaining urban green and blue spaces in Aotearoa.

This event will bring together a broad array of experts to identify the most important issues surrounding green spaces and brainstorm novel solutions to these problems.

Detailshttps://www.scionresearch.com/about-us/news-and-events/events/upcoming-events/urban-forest-futures-new-zealand   

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Coordinator:

Wendy Yan Chen, Hong Kong

Deputies:

Cynnamon Dobbs, United States

Sreetheran Maruthaveeran, Malaysia

Justin Morgenroth, New Zealand

Somidh Saha, Germany

About Unit

Ongoing urbanisation of society has led to the increasing importance of urban green spaces as contributors to the quality of the urban environment and urban life across the globe. Forest and tree resources have a wide range of socio-cultural, economic and environmental values. In order to optimise these values in a sustainable way, within the framework of a range of urban pressures and problems, integrated approaches and research for the planning & design, selection & establishment, and management of urban forests and trees are asked for.

Urban forestry offers considerable potential to meet this demand. It can be defined as the art, science and technology of managing trees and forest resources in and around urban community ecosystems for the physiological, sociological, economic and aesthetic benefits trees provide to society (Helms 1998). Its study topic, the urban forest, ranges from urban and peri-urban woodland to parks, private gardens and street trees.

IUFRO Unit 6.07.00 has the aims to:

  • Develop urban forestry as an area of scientific attention.
  • Improve networking between urban forestry researchers worldwide.
  • Promote multi-disciplinary research into urban forestry issues.
  • Improve the exchange of information and experiences between urban forestry science and practice.

State of Knowledge

Reports on the state-of-knowledge of urban forestry (research) in Asia, Europe and North America have appeared in the following IUFRO publications:

  • Sievänen, T., Konijnendijk, C.C., Langner, L. and Nilsson, K. (eds.) 2001. Assessing the social values of forests. Proceedings of IUFRO Research Groups 6.01, 6.11.04 and 6.14 sessions In the XXI IUFRO World Congress 2000, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Finnish Forest Research Institute, Vantaa.
  • Konijnendijk, C.C., Schipperijn, J. and Hoyer, K.K. (eds.) 2004. Forestry serving urbanised societies. Selected papers from the conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark, 27 to 30 August 2002. IUFRO World Series Volume 14. IUFRO, Vienna. See: www.iufro.org/publications/series/world-series/worldseries-14/

Key references for the current state of urban forestry in Europe respectively North America are also:

  • Miller, R.W., 1997. Urban forestry: planning and managing urban green spaces. Second edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey.
  • Konijnendijk, C.C., Nilsson, K., Randrup, T.B., Schipperijn, J. (eds.) Urban Forests and Trees. Springer, Heidelberg.