Urban Forests and Urban Tree Use

Traditionally, the core responsibilities of an urban and community forester revolved around tree planting, tree removal, and tree maintenance. These responsibilities have expanded over the last few decades to include management considerations such as water flow and water quality, air pollution mitigation, air temperature modification, carbon sequestration, human health, invasive plants, wildlife management, and tree (wood) utilization.

In October 2010, Dovetail Partners published a report on the evolving nature of urban forestry as a “discipline that mirrors many of the considerations and complexities of traditional forest management”. This current report (2014) focuses on urban tree use (wood utilization) as one of the many opportunities being explored in innovative ways by urban and community (municipal) foresters and arborists. This report is divided into broad sections – local, state, national and international – but it is not intended to be an all-inclusive review of the status of urban and community tree use. Rather, the intent is to highlight urban and community forestry and tree-use examples from various viewpoints, and to underscore the scope of the ‘movement’ from local to an international perspective.