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How are the demographics of our field changing? Photo by Michelle Sutton
The project is national in scope, with
survey respondents coming from all
over the U.S. Although the project
directive is to examine the urban forest-
ry profession within the United States,
researchers have found that although
the players may be different, analo-
gous issues exist around the world.
Therefore, much of this work will likely
resonate with a broader audience.
A steering committee, selected from
leaders around the country within
urban forestry and associated fields
such as stormwater engineering, urban
planning, and landscape architecture,
is serving in an advisory capacity and
as a project sounding board. SMA
Executive Director Jerri LaHaie serves
on the steering committee along with
ISA Executive Director Jim Skiera (for
a full list of steering committee mem-
bers, see the project website at urban-
forestry.frec.vt.edu/2020). Scheduled
to be complete in 2017, the project is
using survey research, focus groups,
and networking to focus on these
issues of professional recruitment and
education.
To begin this process, it is useful to
examine the history of the profession.
In the United States, modern devel-
opment of the profession of "Urban
Forestry" can ostensibly be viewed
as beginning in the early 1970s when
Congress added the stewardship of
urban forests to the responsibilities
of the U.S. Forest Service. Forty years
later, urban forestry is a vibrant and
expanding field of study that is clearly
not practiced exclusively by, or even
predominantly by, those trained in tra
-
ditional natural resource management
fields such as forestry. Instead, natural
resource managers have been joined
