Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 38(6): November 2012 Financial and Human Resources Undoubtedly, the availability of resources, both financial and human, has a major bearing on the extent to which a planned, systematic, and integrated approach to urban forest manage- ment can be achieved. A theme running throughout the results was the scarcity of resources available to many LA tree pro- grams. Respondents frequently regarded insufficient resources as being a significant threat to the efficient and effective deliv- ery of their LA’s tree program. The budget-setting process fur- ther challenged this situation, with many of the LAs indicating that tree management budgets were not being developed to re- flect a planned level of service for the tree program, but were simply formulated on the basis of previous allocations. Consid- erable variations in the total annual LA tree management bud- gets were identified, which ranged from NZD $5,000 to $1.2 million. Three respondents stated that no specific budget for tree management had been established in their local authority. Considerable differences were identified in the amount LAs were spending per capita. Values ranged from 57 cents to 15 dollars, with the majority of the LAs spending $7 or less. The mean value of the number of LA officers involved in a tree management role, expressed as full-time equiva- lents (FTEs) was 2.98. The number of FTEs ranged from 0.05 to 10; 35% of LAs employed 0.5 of a FTE or less. Although care is needed with the interpretation of these results, re- search in England (Britt and Johnston 2008) suggests that LAs with less than one FTE allocated to a tree management role were unlikely to be in a position to develop a planned, sys- tematic, and integrated approach to urban tree management. Income from external sources can play a significant role in helping develop and manage LA tree programs. Sixty-eight per- cent of LAs had not received any funding from external sources for tree-related activities or services in the current (2010–2011) or the previous financial year. A notable exception was a LA that received $300,000 of external funding for its tree pro- gram in 2009–2010 and an additional $150,000 in 2010–2011. Thirty percent of the officers involved in a tree management role were female, which compares favorably to the 21% iden- tified in a similar study in England (Britt and Johnston 2008). A significant feature of the results was the considerable length of time officers had spent in their current posts and in a tree management role. Fifty-two percent of officers had been in post for at least five years, with 17% having been in post for over 20 years. Thirty-eight percent of officers had between 10 and 15 years of experience in a tree management role and 23% had in excess of 20 years of experience. It is interesting to note that despite the officers having a tree management role, 74% of their job titles did not mention trees or tree management, sug- gesting that many of the officers have other responsibilities and were not involved in tree management in a full-time or dedicated role. There was considerable variation in the professional back- ground and qualifications of the officers who were involved in a tree management role, with horticulture, parks and reserves, landscape, and environmental management all featured in the re- sults. Only 30% of the LA officers stated they had a professional arboriculture qualification, and a limited number, 28%, consid- ered arboriculture to be their main professional background. 249 Planned Management Understanding the nature and extent of the urban forest in a local authority’s district is an essential first stage in developing a strate- gic and planned approach for managing this resource. One of the most significant results of the study was that many LAs lacked some basic information about the trees in their district. The ma- jority were not able to accurately state the percentage of their dis- trict covered by trees and the extent these trees were publicly or privately owned. Many LAs only held limited information about their publicly owned trees, with considerable variation in the number and type of tree surveys carried out in the last five years. It is widely accepted that the management of the urban for- est should be directed by a long-term strategy or plan (Clark et al. 1997; Booth 2005; Schwab 2009; Van Wassenaer et al. 2012). Although many LAs reported that they had a relevant strategy in place, typically, these did not support the develop- ment of a comprehensive, planned and integrated approach to tree management. This was because the lack of basic infor- mation about the urban forest was undermining the planning process, making it impossible for many LAs to identify mean- ingful objectives and develop appropriate budgets, manage- ment plans, and performance measures. Based on the results of the χ2 tree strategy than District Councils (χ2 Systematic Management A systematic approach is essential for efficiently and effectively undertaking many of the operations involved in the practical man- agement of the trees in a LA’s district (Kielbaso et al. 1988; John- ston and Rushton 1998). This is particularly important in towns and cities, because for trees to exist in the harsh urban environ- ment there is an almost total reliance on humans to plant and sub- sequently manage the tree throughout its life (Clark et al. 1997). The unpredictable nature of many of the factors that can affect trees growing in towns and cities, such as severe weather events, make it inevitable that an element of a LA’s tree maintenance needs to be performed on demand. Despite this, it should be pos- sible for LAs operating under normal circumstances, with ap- propriate levels of funding, to schedule the majority of their tree maintenance work in advance. The amount of tree work that LAs are able to schedule is a key indicator of the level of systematic management being achieved. Sixty-six percent of LAs indicated that the amount of tree work being scheduled in advance was be- low the 40% threshold originally suggested by Kielbaso et al. (1988), which is generally regarded as being indicative of a sys- tematic approach. If the threshold was increased to 50% (which has been suggested given the advances in urban tree manage- ment), 79% of LAs would be below this level. The results of the t-test suggest a significant association exists between the type of council and the amount of tree work being scheduled in advance (t = 5.929, df = 21 P < 0.01) with City Councils more likely to schedule greater amounts of tree work than District Councils. The extent and frequency with which LAs inspect their trees directly affects their ability to develop a systematic approach to managing this public resource. As well as providing the data need- ed to develop and manage future work programs, inspections play a significant role in managing tree-related risks and in the event of litigation can be a fundamental part of a LA’s defense. Con- siderable variation between the levels of inspections conducted ©2012 International Society of Arboriculture test, City Councils were no more likely to develop a = 2.85, df1, P > 0.05).
November 2012
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