Open Collections

Bassett, Corinne G.

University of British Columbia

Urban forests are recognized as a nature-based solution providing myriad ecosystem services addressing the sustainability challenges faced by cities. This dissertation investigates disconnects between the practice of urban forest management and urban sustainability goals set by cities. Chapter 2 frames the dissertation, using the economic phenomenon of the “tyranny of small decisions” and the case of urban forestry. I argue that where social and ecological characteristics vary at fine scales, the so-called small decisions in natural resource management, and the people who make them, are critical underpinnings for achieving large-scale sustainability goals and must be considered in policy. In Chapter 3, I interviewed urban foresters from municipalities in the US and Canada (N=20) to understand current best practices and challenges for aligning street-level management decision-making with ecosystem service goals adopted by their cities. While specific ecosystem service goals did not influence day-to-day decision making, most urban foresters followed a “more, bigger trees” paradigm as a proxy for increasing the ecosystem services provided by city trees overall. Urban forestry was also not found to be well integrated in municipal strategic planning. In Chapter 4, I conducted a multi-city expert elicitation of urban foresters in Vancouver, BC, Canada, Washington, D.C., US, and Honolulu, HI, US, to identify links between management actions and urban sustainability goals, in the context of a hypothetical streetscape. I found that certain direct actions were needed to advance every goal, while other direct actions present tradeoffs. Finally, Chapter 5 shares the findings of a research synthesis focus group that highlighted two critical elements required to circumvent the paradigm suggested by the tyranny of small decisions and achieve larger urban sustainability goals that rely on urban forests: 1) site-scale direct management actions by urban foresters can support larger-scale sustainability goals and 2) urban foresters and other holders of specialized knowledge need to be empowered and supported to make these small-scale decisions. Urban forest management is currently disconnected from urban sustainability planning. Therefore, for cities to achieve ambitious sustainability goals, a broader effort focused on enabling site-specific management and cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration is essential.

Text

2024-06-24

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/88506

Forestry

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/