City Trees

coordination and support for recruitment specifi- cally for urban forestry could bring in new talent. 7. Retention and Advancement. Retaining and supporting practitioners through professional development, monitoring of employment trends to inform development of a career ladder, and count- less other efforts advance a profession. Programs such as the Municipal Forestry Institute develop urban forestry leadership, and there are a wide array of urban forestry related continuing educa- tion offerings by various entities. However, more data is needed on how these programs enhance retention and advancement in urban forestry. 8. Professional Organization. All of the 11 other professions we studied have at least one orga- nized community of practitioners dedicated solely to advancing their own profession by providing the services seen in the prior seven ideals listed here. Professional organizations provide confer- ences, journals, and other forums for networking and dialogue to fuel innovation and growth. They support collaboration with partner industries in the realms of advocacy/government lobbying, brand building, and similar large-scale campaigns. In our article, we looked at the organizations that support these needs for urban forest profes- sionals and found a large array of organizations with diverse mission statements. While SMA is the foundational organization for many profes- sionals, it has historically, and understandably, emphasized arborists who work for munici- palities. Many professionals with expertise in urban forestry are outside those criteria. Room for More Dialogue A key commonality among the 11 professions we studied was they all have ongoing dialogue about self-improvement—whether at professional meetings or in their professional journals. Meanwhile, this kind of self-reflection is new to urban forestry and has largely been lumped in with discussions from sibling professions, such as arboriculture. Fortunately, there has recently been an explosion of discussions related to urban forest professionalism, including sym- posia on urban forestry education, the Sustainable Forestry Institute's efforts to create a certification for urban forests, and sessions at the upcoming World Forum on Urban Forests in October, 2023. For urban forestry to continue to grow—in terms of the number of professionals, how well practitioners can serve society, and how rewarding we find our professional lives to be—this dialogue and reflection needs to con- tinue. We look forward to being a part of it. urban-forestry.com 23 Support for dedicated degree programs that reflect our Body of Knowledge could bolster recognition of our field and help entry-level urban forest professionals develop high levels of expertise quickly.

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