While humans have been cultivating trees in cities
for thousands of years, urban forestry has emerged
as a distinct profession much more recently. Many
of us consider working as a professional in the field
of urban forestry to be the ideal mix of working
outside and in offices, and with people and nature.
This success in creating a meaningful and impactful
profession is owed in large part to the efforts of prac-
ticing professionals, professional organizations (such
as the SMA), and allied professional support through
government agencies (such as the USDA Forest
Service), universities, nonprofits, and other entities.
But what are the ideal characteristics of a profes-
sion? What can urban forestry do to improve and
better serve its current and future professionals?
We recently published an analysis of this topic in our
May 2023 paper in Arboriculture & Urban Forestry,
"Borrowed Credentials and Surrogate Professional
Societies: A Critical Analysis of the Urban Forestry
Profession." Here are some highlights—though we
hope you take the opportunity to read the full paper!
This new study builds upon over a decade of previous
research on professional identity of urban foresters
and challenges in recruiting new people to the profes-
sion of urban forestry (See Urban Forestry 2020). This
research has established that arboriculture and urban
forestry, though inextricably linked, are not the same.
We first did a deep dive examining how 11 other profes-
sions—from doctors and lawyers to foresters—operate,
and we then created a set of eight ideal characteristics
that underpin how a profession could best serve society.
Then, we compared how urban forestry stacked up.
Can Urban Forestry
be the Ideal Profession?
Photo by Sarah Gugercin
20 CityTREES
