In 2020, I received an unexpected invitation to par-
ticipate as one of the professors of the new online
Diploma in Tree Management and Urban Green Areas
at the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO). I loved the
idea, and it is a great honor to be a part of the curric-
ulum development and teaching team. After almost
ten years working in a municipality—I was in charge
of the urban trees of a small community near the
city of Santiago—I realized that this was an excellent
opportunity to share my knowledge and experience
in this matter. Besides, I always wanted to be a pro-
fessor of arboriculture: a dream come true! I also
considered the Universidad de La Frontera to be
visionary in creating a postgraduate program around
the management of trees and urban green areas—a
program totally unprecedented in our country.
Together with Luis González Osorio, current president of
the Chilean Society of Arboriculture, we addressed one
of the central modules of the Diploma, called "Urban
tree management and green areas," with a practical and
applied approach. Topics include pests and diseases,
management of urban water resources, tree planting
and establishment, and urban tree pruning. These
modules were developed with respect to the specific
climatic and socio-environmental challenges that we
face today in Chile and puts a special emphasis on the
concepts and techniques of arboriculture as a scientific
discipline—those that have been widely disseminated
by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA).
Being part of the teaching team has been a great
experience; I enjoy sharing with fellow profes-
sors and academics the challenges of offering a
diploma of this type, and I enjoy the many enthu-
siastic participating students, who bring diverse
opinions and experiences associated with the man-
agement of urban vegetation. The UFRO program
is an important advance in urban forestry training,
the graduates of which will be better prepared to
maintain their current and future urban forests.
There is a unanimous consensus and pride among
my colleagues that UFRO is filling an important need
with this program. Housed as we are in southern
Chile, in the
Araucanía Region where our beautiful
monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana) reigns, we
are creating a new benchmark for the management
of urban trees and green spaces, which we celebrate
with great enthusiasm. Congratulations, UFRO!
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