Increasingly, foresters and urban
foresters, as well as arborists, horti-
culturists, and landscape planners, are
looking to engage rural communities
in tree planting and maintenance pro-
grams. Engaging rural stakeholders
is paramount to meeting large-scale
state/provincial or federal planting
goals. Across this three-part series,
Alexander Martin explores termi-
nology, issues, opportunities, and case
studies of small communities and
their urban forestry departments.
Rural Urban Forestry, Part 2 of 3:
Conducting Inventories and Forest
Health Assessments in the Urban
Forests of Rural Communities
Story and photos by Alexander Martin
ISA Board Certified Master Arborist, Co-Chair
of the Canadian TREE Fund, and Director of
Ironwood Urban Forestry Consulting Inc.
urban-forestry.com 27
If you have perused the literature on urban forest
management over the past several years, you have
likely noted the large increase in the application of
technology. Big data approaches to urban forestry
and remote sensing have provided novel methods
for assessing the current composition of urban
forests, providing faster methods for assessing and
comparing between different years, and facilitating
the development of rigorous monitoring programs.
One of the major challenges for successful and
sustainable urban forest management in rural com-
munities is limited budgets. For some communities,
urban forestry is opportunistically funded, varying in
annual investments depending on how much is "left
over in the budget." I have worked with communi-
ties that are attempting to accomplish a breadth of
management objectives with budgets ranging from
$500 to $25,000—all from municipal funds that
remained available at the end of the fiscal year. >>
