70 Donovan and Mills: Tree Planting Programs in Oregon, U.S. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2014. 40(2): 70–77 Environmental Justice and Factors that Influence Participation in Tree Planting Programs in Portland, Oregon, U.S. Geoffrey H. Donovan and John Mills Abstract. Many cities have policies encouraging homeowners to plant trees. For these policies to be effective, it is impor- tant to understand what motivates a homeowner’s tree-planting decision. Researchers address this question by identifying vari- ables that influence participation in a tree-planting program in Portland, Oregon, U.S. According to the study, homeowners with street trees, and those living in older homes, are more likely to participate in the local program. Homeowners who had owned their homes for longer, and those who live in census-block groups with lower high-school graduation rates, are less likely to par- ticipate in the program. Results suggest that tree-planting programs may inadvertently exacerbate environmental inequality. Key Words. Census; Demographics; Education; Environmental Justice; Income; Oregon; Portland; Race; Urban Forestry. In the last 25 years, research has found that trees provide a diverse range of benefits to urban resi- dents (Ulrich 1984; Akbari and Taha 1992; Kuo and Sullivan 2001; McPherson et al. 2005; Nowak et al. 2006; Donovan and Butry 2010), which has encour- aged many cities to adopt ambitious tree-planting goals. Indeed, of the ten largest cities in the United States, nine have explicit targets for increasing the size of their urban forests—expressed as number of new trees planted. For example, New York City, New York, is committed to planting 1 million trees by 2017 (Million Trees NYC 2012) and Phoenix, Arizo- na, has a goal of 25% canopy cover by 2030 (City of Phoenix 2010). However, in most cities, these goals cannot be achieved by only planting trees in parks, at schools, or other public spaces (Karps 2007; Greene et al. 2011). Cities must also rely on homeowners to plant trees on private property. To effectively en- courage homeowners to plant trees, it is important to understand why homeowners plant trees and to identify the barriers that prevent them from doing so. It is also important to know what motivates peo- ple to participate in tree-planting programs, as these programs can have unintended environmental- justice implications. Environmental justice is the ethical principle that environmental benefits and ©2014 International Society of Arboriculture burdens should be equitably distributed. More for- mally, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as, “The fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regard- less of race, color, sex, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regula- tions, and policies” (U.S. Environmental Protec- tion Agency 2012). In the current study, researchers examine whether some demographic groups (e.g., those with higher incomes) are more likely to partic- ipate in, and benefit from, a tree-planting program. Environmental justice is an important issue in urban forestry, as research has shown that trees pro- vide a broad range of benefits, including increased house price (Anderson and Cordell 1988; Culp 2008), reduced energy use (Akbari et al. 1997; Donovan and Butry 2009), reduced crime (Kuo and Sullivan 2001; Troy et al. 2012), improved air quality (Nowak et al. 2006), and improved public health (Donovan et al. 2011; Lovasi et al. 2008; Donovan et al. 2013). Although no studies have examined the environmental-justice consequences of tree-planting programs, several studies have shown that more afflu- ent neighborhoods tend to have more natural ameni- ties or greater species diversity (Heynen and Lindsey
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