Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 47(1): January 2021 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2021. 47(1):1–2 https://doi.org/10.48044/jauf.2021.001 URBAN FORESTRY ARBORICULTURE Scientific Journal of the International Society of Arboriculture & Editor’s Note: A Call to Action By Cecil Konijnendijk When I was a young forestry student at Wageningen University in the Netherlands during the early 1990s and started exploring this emerging field called urban forestry, I came across the (then) Journal of Arbori- culture (JoA). Our university library did not have all volumes of the journal, but what I found made me even more enthusiastic to pursue a career in urban forestry. I came to realise that JoA was the leading journal in the fields of arboriculture as well as urban forestry, although this was not yet reflected in the title. Reading articles in the journal edited by Robert Miller led to an internship in California and, a few years later, my first ever peer-reviewed article, pub- lished in JoA. Many years have passed since then. JoA became the journal Arboriculture & Urban Forestry (AUF), and its contents were more readily available with the emergence of the internet and online databases. The fields of arboriculture, and especially urban forestry, developed rapidly and became truly global. With this came new journals as well, including Urban Forestry & Urban Greening (UFUG), which I cofounded together with Thomas Randrup in 2002. UFUG ini- tially had a strong European focus, and most papers focused on urban forestry rather than arboriculture. When I stepped down as Editor-in-Chief at the end of 2019, the journal had achieved a good impact factor, which ranked it in the top five of all forestry journals. Urban forestry (and arboriculture) had clearly come of age also scientifically. UFUG papers had started to get cited outside of the “green” literature, even in medical journals such as The Lancet. Increasingly, the links between urban trees and urban forests on the one hand, and the development of healthy, vibrant, competitive, and climate-resilient cities on the other, are being recognised. As outgoing Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Jason Grabosky also highlighted in his excellent editorial that AUF has not yet capitalised on this exciting trend. Where science and journals have thrived, AUF has seen a decrease in the number of papers published. Dr. Gra- bosky gives some good explanations for this, includ- ing the difficult challenge of balancing science and the needs of a mostly practitioner audience. AUF has also suffered from not having a journal impact factor yet. Many universities and research institutes these days require researchers and graduate students to publish their work in journals that are highly ranked and have an impact factor. This principle now often supersedes the wish to reach the right target audience. AUF, and the International Society of Arboricul- ture (ISA) as its publisher, now find themselves in this complex publishing landscape. I am honoured and humbled to have been appointed AUF’s new Editor- in-Chief and eager to take on the challenge. There are many good things to build on. First of all, the journal has undergone a major professionalisation during the past years due to the efforts of the ISA leadership, the visionary editorship of Dr. Grabosky, and the key contributions of our journal editor, Lindsey Mitchell. I also acknowledge the hard, voluntary work of our Associate Editors and reviewers, and of course all the authors who have opted for publishing in the journal. A journal like this is a community, and it can only thrive if the community is healthy and engaged. In today’s urban societies, faced with challenges ranging from climate change to public health issues, urban trees and urban forests have a crucial role to play. Just as we need highly qualified professionals who can take care of these resources, we need the research and evidence to support them. Good scien- tific journals are a key avenue for getting the latest ©2021 International Society of Arboriculture 1
January 2021
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