Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 44(2): March 2018 Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2018. 44(2):101–115 101 Resident Attitudes and Actions Toward Native Tree Species: A Case Study of Residents in Four Southern Ontario Municipalities Andrew Almas and Tenley Conway Abstract. Urban forests are increasingly acknowledged as important areas for producing ecosystem services and maintaining ecosys- tem processes. In response, municipalities throughout North America have been adopting long-term plans to support strategic man- agement of the urban forest. These plans have the potential to shape the urban forest for decades to come. Most management plans emphasize the planting of native trees, to improve ecological integrity and ecosystem services, and acknowledge the need for resident stewardship to help meet urban forestry goals. Residents’ support and action is crucial, since the majority of urban trees are located on residential property, yet it is unclear what residents’ attitudes and actions are regarding native trees. Using a case study of four municipalities in southern Ontario, Canada (two that have management plans that call for more native species plantings and two that do not), researchers administered a survey that explored residents’ attitudes and actions toward native tree species, focusing on the relationship between municipal emphasis on native species planting, household socio-demographics, and residents’ attitudes and actions toward native species. The results indicate that residents’ generally have positive attitudes toward native trees, although fewer are interested in planting native species if they create a hazard or increase costs. Moreover, these generally positive attitudes do not translate into emphasizing native species when actually selecting tree species to plant. This paper adds to existing research sur- rounding the need for further outreach and environmental education and greater availability of native plants in local nurseries. Key Words. Carolinian Canada; Municipal Policy; Native Species; Nurseries; Ontario; Residents; Stewardship; Urban Forest. Urban forests are increasingly recognized as im- portant areas for producing life-sustaining eco- system services (Dobbs et al. 2011; Ostoić and Konijnendijk van den Bosch 2015). As a result, urban forests are oſten managed to maximize soci- etal benefits through a focus on ecosystem service provision, including microclimate regulation, stormwater mitigation, erosion control, shading, carbon sequestration, and human-stress reduc- tion (Bolund and Hunhammar 1999; Alvey 2006; Dobbs et al. 2011; Elmqvist et al. 2015). In addi- tion, maintaining native species assemblages can increase ecological integrity and provide resilience against disturbances (Alvey 2006; Raupp et al. 2006; Alberti 2010; Ordóñez and Duinker 2012). Recent research has focused on the role of key actors involved with stewardship of the urban forest to better understand the socio-ecological dynamics contributing to urban forest conditions and to sup- port effective management (e.g., Avolio 2015; Con- way et al. 2011; Watkins et al. 2016). Of these actors, residents may be the least understood but perhaps the most important, as the majority of trees in the urban forest are located on private property (Nowak 2012). Thus, many of the decisions regarding urban tree and removal are being made by residents. An expansive literature has documented the relationship between residents’ socio-demographic characteristics and urban forest characteristics at the property and neighborhood scale, plant- ing activities, and general support for municipal urban forestry (Sommer et al. 1994; Fraser and Kenney 2000; Grove et al. 2006; Heynen et al. 2006; Troy et al. 2007; Landry and Chakraborty 2009; Tooke et al. 2010; Zhang and Zheng 2011; Kendal et al. 2012; Pham et al. 2012). Addition- ally, several studies have shown that residents’ attitudes toward urban greenery are typically expressed through planting and maintenance ©2018 International Society of Arboriculture planting, species selection, maintenance,
March 2018
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