Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 38(4): July 2012 Poverty rate (X5) had significant negative effect on funding for tree programs. A high poverty rate in the city or community will re- duce the funding of urban tree programs. So in a relatively poor city, financing for tree planting will mostly be cut in urban tree programs. The number of tree agencies in cities (X6) and the aware- ness of Alabama forestry service (X7) both had a positive con- tribution to tree program financing. The magnitude of the ef- fect of X6 on tree maintenance was the largest compared to the other three categories (0.43). That is to say, the funding for tree maintenance will benefit from the increased awareness of tree agencies. Also, the awareness of forestry services will help tree maintenance by a large amount (0.28). Other urban tree service financing, such as debris and tree removal, will also be beneficial from the promotion of tree agencies and services. Whether a city has plans to plant more trees within the next five years (X9) can significantly influence the financing of an urban tree program. Cities with tree planting plans will increase the tree planting funding by exp (2.19); tree mainte- nance funding by exp (2.04), debris removal funding by exp (0.88), and tree removal funding by exp (1.26), comparing to cities without tree planting plans. This is reasonable because if the city would plant more trees in the future, the spending on tree planting will definitely be increased. More funding will be needed to manage and maintain the newly planted trees as well. Local officials’ preference toward trees was not sta- tistically significant in most of the models. The municipal of- ficials’ appreciation of urban trees in citizens’ lives (X8) was only significantly related to tree planting funding. How much they love trees or consider trees to be important in citizens’ lives seemed unrelated to the real spending on tree programs. The opportunity for citizens to support urban trees in either voluntary or donation forms was also a very important part for supporting urban tree programs. The survey results found that almost half of the cities offered opportunities for its citizens to volunteer to plant trees (Figure 3). For the maintenance of urban trees and removal of debris from the disposal of urban trees, the percentages were 39% and 43%, respectively. As for the opportunity for citizens to donate money to support urban tree programs, the percentages were relatively low. For planting trees, 43% of the Alabama cities provided ways for their citi- zens to donate. For maintenance of urban trees and removal of 165 debris from the disposal of urban trees, the percentages were only 33% and 28%, respectively. Thus, less than half of cities provided their citizens with ways to donate. More efforts can be made. CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS Figure 3. Information on citizens’ willingness to contribute to urban tree programs. The findings indicate that the significance of urban forestry is widely recognized by Alabama local officials. Most local of- ficials considered urban trees in the community to be very im- portant. Zhang et al. (2007) found that 77% of citizens consider trees to be important in selecting a residence. So both citizens and local officials like trees in general. However, municipal officials are responsible for allocating funding and managing public trees, and so their concerns about trees are different from residents. As for the benefits of trees, it seemed that munici- pal officials paid more attention to the socioeconomic benefit of trees (such as increased property value and an increase in community pride) than in trees’ ecological values. Residents in communities usually favored the aesthetical and health value (Lewis 1992; Thompson et al. 1999), and the residents’ aware- ness of economic benefits was very low (Jim and Chen 2006). Municipal officials want to have more information about urban forestry management cost, while residents usually want to know more about tree care in their own yard (Zhang et al. 2007). More importantly, the ecological benefits were consid- ered less significant by municipal officials. The benefit of improved of health and well-being was least valued. The dif- ference in tree benefit perception among the three types of of- ficials is an indication that knowledge about their tree programs may be incomplete or not fully understood. This incomplete understanding of the benefits of trees and tree care practices may lead to low public support, insufficient funding, and in- adequate personnel and equipment. Meanwhile, it seems that local municipal officials do not know the financial situation of their community’s urban forestry program very well. This finding indicates that around 20%–30% of the municipal offi- cials did not know how much money was spent in their com- munity on urban tree programs. Stevenson et al. (2008) found that only 20%–42% of the officials regarded a well-funded tree program to be as important as other municipal responsibilities. Many were unaware of available grants or technical assistance. Thus, more education opportunities should be provided. Offi- cials may be persuaded to start or improve tree programs by explaining benefits more fully, and how public safety can be improved by proper pruning, inventories that locate danger- ous trees, and management plans that arrange to remove them. When compared to the importance of planting trees, local municipal officials were more concerned about how to man- age and maintain existing trees. More money had been spent on tree maintenance (e.g., tree debris removal) rather than tree planting. In an Illinois community survey, spending municipal funds on the removal of hazardous trees received the greatest support from municipal officials and foresters (Schroeder et al. 2003). Research has shown that adequate funding for tree programs can be achieved where officials perceive that resi- dents are supportive (Robeson 1984; Elmendorf et al. 2003). In the present study, municipal officials expressed high appre- ciations for trees. However, actual spending on tree programs was highly influenced by the economic situation facing a com- munity. The findings indicate that appreciation for trees had ©2012 International Society of Arboriculture
July 2012
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