388 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2020. 46(6):388–394 Grabosky: Editor’s Note URBAN FORESTRY ARBORICULTURE Scientific Journal of the International Society of Arboriculture & Editor’s Note: Seeing the Forest for the Trees By Jason Grabosky By now, many have become aware that I am stepping away from the journal in my current role as Editor-in- Chief. It is a strange title for a person whose main job is much like pulling on a rope for a large kite in the wind, explicitly ignorant of when and from where the wind patterns are scheduled to change, while asking others to provide guidance on the quality of the wind. It has been an honor to serve this community, and I step aside with great respect for the professional prac- tice element of this readership. I leave with humility in having your trust. I hope that I have honored that trust. I suggest that you can all join me in thanking the ISA leadership team (specifically Lindsey Mitchell), the large number of volunteer Associate Editors (past and present), and myriad volunteer reviewers who donate their time to make your research journal a reality. Further, in that action, we acknowledge their contribution to both advancing our understanding and stewarding the foundations of our collective profes- sion in tree care and management. We all stand pro- tected as a science-driven profession by the collective effort of that volunteer bulwark. These institutional moves cause moments of reflection which can be nostalgic and/or informative. I ask you all to walk with me for a moment and look toward the informative. Much as we can look for pat- terns in forest succession and change by looking backward as an objective informant to adaptive man- agement planning going forward, let’s all look into the journal’s recent past to suggest where we’re col- lectively seeking to advance. From that vantage point, we can suggest what is getting left behind at our peril and where we are collectively growing in a positive direction. Much of this is my sole opinion, which stands opposed to the purpose of this journal, but I beg your tolerance, for it is my conceit to generate a collec- tive pause and spirited conversation as an industrial ©2020 International Society of Arboriculture discipline. My effort is a glancing first volley and will not be comprehensive, but it might provide the fuel for a better conversation by the younger generation of really smart folks who are indeed the future of this society. It is, however, my insistence that, in a world where our technology outstrips the pace of our practi- cal understanding across the broad array of species, regions, and systems, we do indeed stop… …and consider what is needed. I ask you to con- sider how we critically value and evaluate what is “flash” versus what is “substantive” in a scientific view and in a management applications perspective. I want to give voice to a larger aspirational challenge as to how we both inform and give equitable voice to research from all regions, regardless of their access to the newest equipment or comprehensive literature bases within their regional or political reality, as an informant for a global profession. I seek to move us beyond the arbiter of the “novel” and the “cutting edge,” to fill species and regional gaps in our under- standing and our global reality. I contend that we need to “backfill” for myriad species, regional varia- tions, and environmental contexts, and contend with the drudgery of occasionally proving the obvious in a new context as we challenge to verify assumptions for the discovery of nuance through organized obser- vations. With that contention, we need a better com- munity effort to frame new works within such an organized frame which does not always come through in a literature review. I seek for us to return to the quality of the question, acknowledging that species or regional difference provides novelty in an intellectual sense. The process (and I might suggest particularly with trees on a temporal, geographic, and mechanical scale) has always been iterative to describe the inher- ent messy variability that comes with biological ques- tions and ecological systems.
November 2020
| Title Name |
Pages |
Delete |
Url |
| Empty |
Search Text Block
Page #page_num
#doc_title
Hi $receivername|$receiveremail,
$sendername|$senderemail wrote these comments for you:
$message
$sendername|$senderemail would like for you to view the following digital edition.
Please click on the page below to be directed to the digital edition:
$thumbnail$pagenum
$link$pagenum
Your form submission was a success. You will be contacted by Washington Gas with follow-up information regarding your request.
This process might take longer please wait
