City Trees

November/December 2016

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!

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How Perspectives of Field Arborists and Tree Climbers are Useful for Understanding and Managing Urban Forests by Adrina C. Bardekjian, MFC, PhD – As published on The Nature of Cities on March 24, 2016 When there is a storm, trees can cause damage to homes, cars, and people—ultimately, the tree itself is a casualty of a storm. At these moments, generally, the public perceives arborists as the heroes of storms—arborists remove the "problem" from their prop- erties. But at most other times during the year, when people see an arborist pruning or removing a tree, they perceive them negatively. Throughout my doctoral research (2015), several narratives emerged from interviews conducted with field arborists and climbers across Southern Ontario, Canada—one of those stories was that public perception of arborists seems to change with the seasons or variances in weather. The arborists I interviewed considered themselves to be environmentalists and nurturers of the urban forest—general public opinion often contrasted this image with stereotypes that arborists mainly perform removals, or harm trees. My interviewees raised the issue that they can be either glorified or vilified, depending on the season and whether there is a storm involved. When the public perceived them negatively, participants felt undervalued given their integral role in urban forest manage- ment and maintenance; this story is latent with power dynamics. As one participant noted, "We can do so much damage" (not just to trees, but to ourselves). Field arborists and climbers hold the power to physically shape the urban forest canopy of the future. Their awareness of their position and, often, the modesty with which they perform their roles, has earned my utmost respect. One interesting story revolved around the notion that nature has its own agency and trees should be valued as living organisms for their own merits, not solely for the services they provide to humans. This was particularly true for large trees. One of my inter- viewees asserted: "You don't really know how big a tree is until it's lying on the ground, vulnerable, exposed and, at that point, dead. Then you truly appreciate its majesty even if you don't understand its worth." There is an interesting paradox in the conceptions of the public between the veneration and appreciation of large, older, heritage trees and the lack of attention for smaller seedlings. Within the subject of agency, par- ticipants included stories about decay and defenses and how vul- nerability is a factor in preser- vation and management efforts. Climbers and grounds crews con- tinually negotiate their positions according to the size and spe- cies with which they are work- ing on a given day. Species type

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