City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/75614
President's Message John McNeil Building the confidence, com- petence, and camaraderie of the family of profession- als who create and sustain community forests is the mission statement of the Society of Municipal Arborists. Yet when Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) was confirmed in my community in 2008, I was anything but confident about what to do, and I did not feel we had the competence to deal with it. Networking with my colleagues at SMA about how to manage EAB has turned around our outlook in Oakville—and it is a clear demonstration of the merits of the sincere and generous camaraderie promoted at SMA. We actually laid the foundation for success well before 2008. In 2005, I was fortunate to participate in the Municipal Arborist Exchange Program with Walt Warriner in Santa Monica. Talking with Walt and being introduced to George Gonzales in Los Angeles opened my eyes to new tools such as i-Tree. They intro- duced me to Dave Nowak and the next year we partnered with the Forest Service (where Dave works as a research forester) and the University of Toronto and Tree Canada to do a UFORE study (UFORE is now known as i-Tree Eco). With UFORE I quantified that 9.6% of our urban forest in Oakville, Ontario was ash, demonstrating the extent of my community's exposure to EAB. UFORE was very popular with my town councilors; I built upon that good favor to get fund- ing the following year to complete our inventory of 138,000 street and park trees and 850 ha (2,100 acres) of woodland parks. Greg McPherson at the Center for Urban Forestry in Davis, California and his staff were of great assistance with this project. Two years later we had a GIS map of all 14,500 municipal ash trees in Oakville. Talking one day with David Sivyer at the City of Milwaukee got me interested in how to use hyperspectral imagery to map the private ash trees throughout Oakville. Now we've mapped the host—but where's the insect? In 2010, that question was answered when I met Dr. Krista Ryall who was conducting trials on a branch sampling method for early detection and delimitation mapping (she went on to present at SMA's confer- ence in Milwaukee last year). Arborist Exchange Program, i-Tree, hyperspectral imagery, and the Ryall Branch Sampling Method: these are all powerful tools in the SMA EAB tool box. Now I'm beginning to build a whole lot of confidence: I've mapped the host and I've mapped the insect. SMA's EAB Position Paper helped solidify my and our confidence in our ash canopy conservation approach to management and, combined with the support from other members, affirmed our feelings of competence. This is what our mission is all about. Executive Director's Message Jerri J. LaHaie With so much happening, it's hard to pick one thing to write about this month! While it might feel like the lazy, crazy days of summer, there is no slowing down at SMA. Conference planning is in high gear— our education committee, chaired by Eric Kuehler, has been relentless in putting together an educational pro- gram for our 48th International Annual SMA Conference and Trade Show this November. Although we are holding our conference (November 12-13) in conjunction with the Partners in Community Forestry (PCF) Conference (November 14-16), there will still be a full day of educational sessions designed for municipal arborists, as well as some optional pre-conference workshops. We will be focusing on risk management/assessment and have some fabulous speakers lined up for you. Look for the agenda in this issue of City Trees. We have also been helping with the PCF program, which will be announced soon. You'll want to stick around Sacramento for the PCF conference to not only hear more great speakers but to take advantage of the local field sessions and extended audience. Remember the five interns who shared their first-ever SMA Internship with us in Milwaukee? This summer, we have twice as many—and from all indications, they will be every bit as enthusiastic and inspiring as our first group. You can meet these bright young people at the conference. Are you a Municipal Forestry Institute (MFI) alum, or an alumnus wannabe? Plans are in the works for a gathering in Sacramento of alums from seven years of MFI to meet up and also to welcome those of you who are considering attending MFI to hear about it firsthand from those who have already benefitted from it. Unbelievably, it's about time for MFI 2013 registration! Another conference we have been working on is the Canadian Urban Forest Conference, which we are proudly co- hosting this October in MFI grad Ivan Listar's City of London, Ontario, Canada. The planning committee has put together a fabulous program and we are looking forward to our USFS Chief Thomas Tidwell being recognized for i-Tree, another of SMA's partner programs. Can't make it to Sacramento or London? We will surely miss you, but this year, you can join the SMA Conference right from your own computer. Details are being worked out with the technology that is available to meet remotely. We just have to figure out how to make it work. But hey, we have all summer! 4 City Trees