Status and potential educational role of Arboreta in Italy

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Colofon This publication contains the Proceedings of the sixth IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry “Educating the Urban Foresters”, held in Arnhem (the Netherlands) and Belgium from May, 21st until May, 23rd, 2003. The European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) is an unique venue where urban forestry professionals meet scientists and policy-makers within the field. The Forum meets yearly, hosted by one of the members. The forum is supported by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations (IUFRO), Workgroup 6.14.00 (Urban Forestry). More information on the European Forum on Urban Forestry can be found on the website www.efuf.org. These proceedings were published by the University of Professional Education Larenstein (Velp, the Netherlands). More copies can be downloaded on the www.efuf.org website.

Editor Ir. Rik De Vreese, Flemish Forest Organisation NGO, Melle (Belgium) Editorial committee Dr. Karel J.M. Bonsen (IPC Groene Ruimte, the Netherlands) Mr. George Borgman (IPC Groene Ruimte, the Netherlands) Mr. Barend van Alfen (Helicon MBCS, the Netherlands) Drs. Hans van Rooijen (University of Professional Education Larenstein, the Netherlands) Miss. Margriet Borgman (Borgman Beheer Consultancy, the Netherlands)

The 6th European Forum on Urban Forestry was organised by IPC Groene Ruimte, Flemish Forest Organisation (VBV), University of Professional Education Larenstein, Helicon MBCS with the support of the Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment, the Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal, the Ministry of the Flemish Community, Forest and Green Areas Division and the Foundation School H.M. King Willem III and H.M. Queen Emma of the Netherlands.

Please cite this publication as follows De Vreese, R., Bonsen, K.J.M., Borgman, G., van Alfen, B., Van Rooijen, J.P.A. & Borgman, M. (2004). Educating the Urban Foresters. Proceedings of the 6th European Forum on Urban Forestry, Arnhem (The Netherlands), May 21st –23rd, 2003. University of Professional Education Larenstein, Velp (The Netherlands).

Table of Contents

FOREWORD ......................................................................................................... 7 SESSION 1 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ .................................................................. 9 Plenary Session ................................................................................................... 9 Education in Urban Forestry - from a Flemish point of view........................................... 9 Rik DE VREESE, Flemish Forest Organisation NGO, Belgium [email protected].......... 9 Educating Urban Foresters in Canada: Past, Present and Future................................... 17 Philip VAN WASSENAER, Urban Forestry Consultant, Canada [email protected] .................................................................................................................... 17 Higher Education of Urban Foresters in Europe: Status and Prospects ............................ 23 Thomas B. RANDRUP, Cecil C. KONIJNENDIJK Skov & Landskab, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Copenhagen, Denmark [email protected], [email protected] ....................... 23 SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ ................................................................ 33 WORKSHOP A. Communication and Public Education (1)....................................... 33 From research findings to practical use....................................................................33 Liselott ERIKSSON, The Swedish Forestry Association, Sweden [email protected]........ 33 Learning from forest users to fit their demand........................................................... 35 Thierry Moigneu, Office National des Forêts, France [email protected] ................. 35 Outdoor recreation and the national forest service in the Netherlands ............................ 37 Jan BLOK, State Forest Service, the Netherlands [email protected] ........................... 37 SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ ................................................................ 41 WORKSHOP B. Communication and Public Education (2)....................................... 41 Forestry and Foresters in Public Opinion .................................................................. 41 Georg FINDEIS, Bezirksforstinspektion, Austria [email protected] .......................... 41 Involving Farmers in the Creation of the Venice Forest................................................ 43 Mariolina TONIOLO, Comune di Venezia, Italy [email protected] Managing the urban forest: better do nothing! .......................................................... 45 Ronald BUITING, Forest Consultant, Buiting Bosontwikkeling, the Netherlands, [email protected] ............................................................................................ 45 Urban Foresters –Winning Hearts and Minds ............................................................ 47 Nerys JONES, National Urban Forestry Unit, United Kingdom [email protected]......... 47 SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ ................................................................ 51 WORKSHOP C. Education of foresters (1)............................................................. 51 What urban foresters need to know, the curriculum development.................................. 51 John RAGGERS, Larenstein University of Professional Education, the Netherlands, [email protected]...................................................................................... 51 Urban Forestry in Indonesia - a Matter of Learning by Doing ........................................ 55 Meilina WIJAYANTI, Bogor Agricultural University, Faculty of Forestry, Indonesia, [email protected] ................................................................................. 55 Organisation, Directives and challenges of Urban Forestry education at Italian Universities. 59 Fabio SALBITANO, University of Florence & Giovanni SANESI, University of Bari, Italy [email protected] ...................................................................................... 59 SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban Foresters’............................................................... 61 WORKSHOP D. Education of Foresters (2)............................................................ 61 Non Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) - A lost opportunity ............................................ 61 Graham HUNT, Forest of Mercia Community Forest, England [email protected]................................................................... 61 ‘ Which tree? Where? – A web based guide for urban forestry students......................... 66 Mary FORREST and Tom MOORE, Department of Crop Science, Horticulture and Forestry, University College Dublin, Ireland [email protected] ............................................ 66 Forest manager? Process manager! New skills acquired for tomorrows forest manager ...... 69 George BORGMAN, Borgman Beheer Consultancy, the Netherlands.............................69

Method for competence mapping in the development of staff and organisation................. 71 Juha PRITTINEN, Helsinki, Sweden [email protected]........................................... 71 EXCURSION TO SONIAN FOREST (Brussels/Flanders, Belgium) – 22nd of May........ 77 Some information about the Sonian Forest, Brussels (Belgium).................................. 77 The Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment .......................................77 The Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal (EBG) ..................................................78 Forest Museum 'Jan van Ruusbroec' ..................................................................... 78 SESSION 3 ‘ Education’....................................................................................... 79 Dutch Urban Forestry: a developing profession.......................................................... 79 Michiel HOUTZAGERS, city of The Hague, the Netherlands [email protected] .................................................................................................................... 79 The education and certification of European Arborists as an example .............................83 Willem P. VAN DELFT, IPC Groene Ruimte, the Netherlands [email protected]...... 83 Ten years of educating multi-objective planning skills to foresters in Finland. Experiences and approaches........................................................................................................ 85 Jukka TIKKANEN, Oulu Polytechnic School of Renewable Natural Resources, Finland, [email protected] .................................................................................... 85 SESSION 4 ‘ Communication: the New Agenda’..................................................... 89 Courses for European Urban Foresters within the Urban Woods for People Project ............ 89 Johanna FROM, Regional Forestry Board of Mälardalen, Sweden................................. 89 The U-turn of the manager ................................................................................... 93 Reijer KNOL, State Forest Service region Flevoland-Overijssel, the Netherlands, [email protected] ........................................................................................... 93 Two-Way Education in Vordenstein Park Management................................................. 95 Ann VAN HERZELE, Free University Brussels and Veerle Heyens, Ministry of the Flemish Community, Brussels, Belgium [email protected] & [email protected]......................................................................... 95 SESSION 5 ‘ Miscellaneous’................................................................................. 99 Lunar Rhythms in Trees: Traditional knowledge under a new scientific light - A contribution to an exchange at higher levels between public and urban foresters .............................. 99 Ernst ZÜRCHER, School of Architecture, Civil and Wood Engineering HSB - Wood Division, Biel, Switzerland, [email protected] .....................................................99 Status and potential educational role of Arboreta in Italy........................................... 105 Sanesi G., COLANINNO B., Pace B., Lafortezza R., University of Bari, Italy ................. 105 The pros and cons of Distance Learning as a viable means of developing the culture of lifelong-learning for urban foresters. ......................................................................... 113 Alan SIMSON, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom [email protected]..... 113 FINDINGS OF THE 6TH IUFRO EUROPEAN FORUM ON URBAN FORESTRY (EFUF) .... 121 Educating the Urban Foresters.......................................................................... 121 Clive DAVIES, North East Community Forests, England [email protected]......... 121 PARTICIPANTS LIST......................................................................................... 131

FOREWORD Attention for how to plan and manage forests and other green resources in urbanising societies is steadily increasing. It has become recognised that natural resource professionals need different knowledge and skills when dealing with the challenges and opportunities associated with urban areas. To cater for this need, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO, http://iufro.boku.ac.at) helped to set up the European Forum on Urban Forestry (EFUF) in 1998. The EFUF is closely associated with IUFRO’ s long-running working party on urban forestry. The concept of urban forestry was developed in North America during the 1960s as an integrative approach to managing the tree-based part of urban green structures, from street and park trees to peri-urban woodland areas. Since its start, the Forum has brought together urban forestry planners, managers and scientists from across Europe. Although foresters have been in the majority, a wide range of professions have been present at different editions of the EFUF, thus acknowledging the need for interdisciplinary approaches. The Forum has discussed various actual themes within urban forestry during its earlier editions, for example financing, communication, multifunctional forest management, and opportunities of using tree and forest establishment and management for the social, environmental and economic regeneration of urban agglomerations. The five previous editions of the Forum have indicated that urban forestry professionals feel that they are often insufficiently prepared for their tasks in terms of education and training. Many skills needed in urban forestry relate more to ‘ people management’than to tree or forest management. Communication, public involvement, conflict management, marketing, and policy-making abilities are all seen as key skills which are seldom sufficiently covered in education and training. Therefore the sixth EFUF was seen as an excellent opportunity to place the theme of ‘ Educating Urban Foresters’central. During three days of presentations, workshops, excursions and not in the least informal discussions, about 60 participants from 17 countries exchanged experiences and ideas with regards current education and training. Perhaps more importantly, they also identified the needs and opportunities for developing urban forestry education and training, be it formal or informal. The papers included in this publication provide an excellent overview of current experiences and good practice in Europe, while they also will be of value for the development of much-needed, specific educational programmes for urban forestry. The papers do not only deal with education and training of professionals, as they stress that education is also a necessity among urban forestry stakeholders. Professionals, politicians and laymen such as the general public and interest groups can learn a lot from each other through sound and intensive communication. Rather than educating the public, as was the adagium in the old days, urban forestry professionals understand that there is much to learn and gain from local residents. How to these people look upon the urban forest, for example? What local knowledge and experience can they contribute with?

This sixth edition of the EFUF was held in the Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium. Both are among the most urbanised parts of Europe and have extensive experience with planning and managing natural resources under urban pressures and demands. The local organisers, headed by the University of Professional Education Larenstein, IPC Groene Ruimte, MBCS Helicon, and the Flemish Forest Organisation NGO provided the Forum participants with an excellent and inspiring setting for fruitful discussions, acknowledging the spirit of the young, but already recognised European Forum on Urban Forestry. Cecil C. Konijnendijk Coordinator, IUFRO 6.14.00 Urban Forestry & European Forum on Urban Forestry

Proceedings of the Sixth IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry “Educating the Urban Foresters”

SESSION 1 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ Plenary Session Education in Urban Forestry from a Flemish point of view Rik DE VREESE, Flemish Forest Organisation NGO, Belgium [email protected]

Abstract

In Flanders there is an ambitious goal of creating 10.000 ha new forests, focussing on, amongst others, recreational forest close to cities. Despite the efforts done, realisations fail to occur due to resistance to these large scale projects. This resistance can be attributed to misunderstandings, ignorance or personal motivations. Education can play an important role to lower the resistance and to broaden the support base, both from the public as from politicians. In Ghent the Flemish Forest Organisation is working at a pilot project for a new urban forest of about 300 ha, in cooperation with the Flemish Forest Administration (Forest and Green Areas Division) and local authorities (Province of Eastern Flanders). In order to realise such a farreaching project, it is necessary to gain support from the general public. To achieve this, a whole range of instruments and tools can be used. Within this paper, an overview of the used instruments will be given, with their impact factor. Instruments used are e.g. a website, newsletters, visibility during city fairs, etc. The main result of this communication and sensitisation campaign is the raised awareness on the new urban forest by the general public and the increased political support. At this moment, almost every citizen knows about the forest. The challenge is now to secure concrete political decisions soon and to start to create this forest in the short time. Finally, the influence of urban forestry within the education of foresters in Flanders will be discussed shortly. Keywords: forest expansion, urban forest, Flanders, education, communication, participation, sensitisation, land use change, forest recreation

Introduction Forestry in Flanders Flanders is the highly urbanised region in the north of Belgium. Due to the decentralised government model, the region is responsible for forest policy and forest management. Within this densely populated region, forests are scarce. Only 11 % of the area is forested. Moreover, more than 70 % of the forests are privately owned and generally not accessible. The forests are unequally distributed (ranging from 2 % forest cover in the west up to 21 % in the east, see Figure 1). It is clear that within this densely populated region the pressure on the accessible forests is very high. Education, communication, sensitisation and participation Within this paper, education is approached in a broad sense, targeting towards the public in general. Within the context of this paper, education is used as a means to inform the general public (communication) and to influence their vision (sensitisation) towards an urban forestry project. By communicating a certain message, the public is educated and sensitised for the value of urban forests towards the city and its inhabitants. Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 www.efuf.org

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Figure 1. Forest inventory of Flanders, indicating the location of Ghent

Participation is aimed at involving the stakeholders within the decision making process on the (their) urban forest, and therefore participation is not necessarily included within an educational concept. Nevertheless, through participation, the stakeholders can learn about the topic, about the visions of the others and about themselves. So most types of participation include also a form of education (e.g. communication and mutual learning)

Forest expansion General scheme To cope with the low forest cover and the high pressure on the (accessible) forests, 10.000 ha new forests were foreseen within the Spatial Structure Plan for Flanders (1997 –2007). One of the priorities is the creation of recreational forest complexes nearby urbanised areas, the socalled urban forests. A mid term evaluation of the forest expansion scheme in 2002 learnt that only 1.250 ha of land were acquired for new forests; only 800 ha of them were already planted with trees. So, there is still a long way to go. Problem definition Trying to make an evaluation of these results, one can distinguish the role of education of the general public towards urban forestry and the realisation of new urban forests. Much people are in favour of new recreational forests, but generally the voices of the opponents sound much louder than these of the supporters. Education of the general public through large-scale communication and sensitisation campaigns and involvement of the stakeholders in participative planning processes can influence these attitudes. Consequently, the urban forest project becomes well known in the region and gets a better image. The role of education of the public within the creation of new urban forests When creating new urban forests, three phases are distinguished (Nachtergaele et al., 2002):   the localisation phase: where should the forest come?   the concept phase (structural design): what should it look like?   the implementation phase (realisation phase): how will we realise it? Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 10/132 www.efuf.org

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For a more detailed description of the phases, one can consult Van Elegem et al. (2000) and Nachtergaele et al. (2002). Linked with these three phases, different education and participation goals and methods can be distinguished within the urban forestry practice at this moment in Flanders (Nachtergaele et al., 2002). Before or within the localisation phase, education and sensitisation is aimed at generating support for the new urban forest. Extremely, these instruments are used to provoke decision making regarding the realisation of a new urban forest. During the concept phase, participation is used to involve stakeholders within the design of the new forest. When approaching the implementation or realisation phase, participation is aimed at incorporating the needs or desires of several types of end users within the realisation of the forest. The creation of large scale new urban forests is controversial, especially in urbanised areas, where there is a enormous pressure on the non built land. Therefore, generating political support is quite difficult. After all, political support is needed to start the realisation of a new forest. But politicians will not support such a project before they are sure the public (their voters) also support it. On the other hand, it is quite difficult to start a communication campaign when there are no concrete political decisions already made. Opponents keep on pointing towards that point and involved actors (as well opponents as supporters) feel very insecure about the future. One of the means to break out of this vicious circle and to secure political support, is by gaining support of the general public through communication and sensitisation campaigns. Below, we will illustrate how this was done in the Ghent case study. Once the majority of the general public is convinced of the need for a new urban forest, politicians will follow more easily in taking the decisions needed to realise it. Within the Ghent case study, the impact of the communication and sensitisation campaigns on the political world has been sneaking, but significant. The participation paradox There are two opposite visions towards participation within the planning and realisation of new urban forests in Flanders. On the one hand, stakeholders in general and social scientists aim at maximal participation throughout the process. People like to participate within the decision making on their environment. Some stakeholders also like to try to influence the decision making, to maximise their chances or to realise their wishes. On the other hand, policy makers aim at maximising the realisation chances of the new urban forest. Within the first vision, the focus lies on interactive policy making. Within this approach, stakeholders (which can also include policy makers and politicians) determine the outcome of the process, within the available policy framework. Participation is more a means than a goal. Applied to urban forestry planning, this means that the outcome of the process can be different than that wanted by the civil servants and policy makers. Within the second vision, policy makers use education, communication and participation as a means to serve their goal (the realisation of a new urban forest), which is used at strategic moments or to influence strategic decisions. Research by De Vreese et al. (2002) and Wildemeersch et al. (2003) tried to combine both views, which seem to be quite complicated. An elaborate description of this research is not possible within this paper, but this paradox is an interesting topic to keep in mind when reading the description of the Ghent case study.

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Case study: the Park Forest in Ghent (Flanders) Context The creation of new recreational forests near cities is one of the main aims of the forest expansion scheme. Ghent is the second largest city of Flanders with more than 225.000 inhabitants. Within the city there is no public forest, and in the neighbourhood, accessible forests are scarce. To cope with this, the Regional Government (Flanders) and the Province Council decided to search the most suitable and feasible location for an urban forest of about 300 ha. The description of the methodology used within this localisation phase is described by Van Elegem et al. (2002). As a result, four possible locations were selected. In one of these locations (Castle Site-Scheldevelde), the project is now carried out under the name Park Forest. Description of the project area The Park Forest is situated south of Ghent. Generally spoken, the project area is divided in three sub areas, Rosdam and the Castle Site on the one hand and Scheldevelde on the other. Nowadays, the main functions of the project area are residential and agricultural. Rosdam and the Castle Site area is characterised by the presence of ten 18th century castles, their parks and their arable land, all privately owned. Some of the castle parks parcelled out their properties, to create exclusive residential areas. The Scheldevelde area is characterised by the Castle Scheldevelde and the typical alley pattern, dating back from the initially exploitations of the area. In the future, the Park Forest will be developed in an urban forest landscape composed of forests, parks, nature areas, agricultural areas and landscape. For this purpose, agricultural land will be acquired by the authorities and forested. Of course, there is also place for private initiatives regarding afforestation. The existing parks will be included in the design. Parts of the existing parks will be opened for the public. In other parts, nature development and landscape restoration will occur. In the remaining area, sustainable agriculture will be secured. To realise this, a structure plan is designed (concept phase), which outlines the main structures of the project area. This structure plan is refined on parcel level into an executive plan, which is also the legal base for the future land use. Project team The project is carried out by a public private partnership, consisting of the Forest and Green Areas Division of the Flemish Regional Ministry, the Environmental Planning and Nature Conservancy Office of the Provincial Administration and the NGO Flemish Forest Organisation (VBV). To give the project team an identity, a brand name (Bossanova), logo and mascot were developed (Figure 2). The project team has regularly contact with the local authorities and other administrations and agencies of the regional ministry.

Figure 2. Logo and mascot of the project team Bossanova (© Flemish Forest Organisation)

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Education process As already outlined, the first step within the creation of a new urban forest is to secure public and political support. To gain public support a large scale communication and sensitisation campaign was developed, within the frame of a Life Environment project (LIFE99ENV/B/000650 “ Development of a policy implementation model for local governments with regard to sustainable environmental planning in urbanised areas on the basis of a case study: Ghent urban forest” ). This project is described in Buyse & Gijsel (2002). To promote the project, a range of communication tools was used. The brand name, logo and mascot were mentioned earlier. At the Flemish Forest Organisation, a permanent information office and secretary was established. Interested citizens could ring, e-mail or visit this office for more information or inquiries. To serve the growing Internet community, an interactive website www.parkbos.be was developed. This website contains the following topics:   state of the art, facts and figures regarding the project;   frequently asked questions;   mail form and discussion forum;   the newsletters;   electronic mailinglist;   agenda and reports of the activities;   childrens’pages. A paper newsletter is published regularly. This newsletter is distributed within the project area, at events and at public places and mailed to the subscribers. The project team developed also an exhibition. This newsletter is supplemented by an electronic newsletter.

Figure 3. The fun forest during the Ghent city fair (July 2001) (Griet Buyse, © Flemish Forest Organisation)

The most eye catching activities were the sensitising activities in the city centre and the project area. At the yearly city fair, Bossanova has been active with a fun forest, a floating forest and the Park Forest mobile (Figure 3). During the city fair, guided walks and cycle tours are organised. Bossanova has also been active during other events, such as Park Day and the yearly music festival “ Flanders Festival” , which organised a concert within one of the castle Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 13/132 www.efuf.org

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parks. The sensitising activities and the presence of Bossanova at the events has got much attention in the local and even the national press. Furthermore the inhabitants of the city remember these activities very well and ask for more of them regularly. Finally, a lot of inhabitants ask for the state of the project during this events or contact the information office afterwards with specific questions regarding the project. Apart from that, activities have been organised for specific target groups, such as youth movements, school children and environmental organisations. For the youth movements, a play day was organised in the project area. School children were involved in seed harvesting and planting trees (see Figure 4). Special information meetings were organised for the local environmental organisations. Finally, information meetings for the inhabitants of the villages in the project area and for the citizens of the city were organised. Participation process Several tools for participation were brought into action. At the information meetings and some of the events, people could write down there remarks and questions. The project was presented to some target groups (youth council, senior council, agricultural associations, environmental associations) and deliberations with these groups took place. In the sounding board group, 18 privileged witnesses could comment on the plans and could question and deliberate with the project team. Children were involved in the design of play forests during a workshop at school. Results of the education process The main result of this communication and sensitisation campaign is the raised awareness on the new urban forest amongst the general public. Nowadays, almost every citizen knows about the forest. So, these campaigns have been very important to gain social and political support for the project. To illustrate this, one can examine the attitude of the city council of Ghent. At first (1999), the city council was not enthusiastic about the new urban forest. They refused to include the realisation of it in the coalition agreement. To cope with this, some environmental organisations organised a debate regarding this topic to convince the city council to reconsider this point. Finally, the city council included the urban forest in her agreement. A few years later, a spatial structure plan had to be made for the city. The Park Forest project was included in this plan without any discussion (2002). Nowadays, the city council is openly supporting the realisation of the Park Forest. This evolution would not have been possible without the communication campaign, which showed a majority of the inhabitants of the city support the realisation of the new forest. Although there have been protests, mainly by farmers (figure 4), public support was gained throughout these campaigns. The political support followed quite easily. Nevertheless, it takes a long time before concrete decisions are made regarding the new land use plan. The large scale communication and sensitisation campaigns also have disadvantages. First of all, they are time consuming and quite expensive. Secondly, through these large scale campaigns, the citizens expect realisations in the short term. Unfortunately, we were not able to fulfil this expectation, which is a negative publicity for the project. However, in general, there are much more advantages than disadvantages by using this approach.

Consequences for the education of (urban) foresters in Flanders From the description above, it is clear that an (urban) forester in Flanders needs a lot of non forestry skills, such as being communicative, being able to negotiate with politicians, target Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 14/132 www.efuf.org

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groups and opponents, being able to organise public events and so on. Some of these tasks can be fulfilled by consultants. Nevertheless, due to budget restrictions, urban foresters have to fulfil some of them by their own. At this moment, urban forestry and its related non forestry skills are not being taught at any level within the forestry education in Flanders. There is very little attention towards urban forestry in the academic education (forest engineers). Some sparse courses on communication with target groups are taught within the permanent education programme for forest wardens at the Flemish Forest and Green Areas Division (by the Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal).

Conclusion The planning and realisation of new urban forests for recreational purposes in Flanders is difficult and takes a lot of time. Education can play an important role in the planning and realisation process of new urban forests. By educating the stakeholders, the general public and politicians, the planning and realisation of new forests can be accelerated by lowering the resistance and by gaining the support of the groups involved. The lack of attention towards urban forestry within the forestry education is astonishing in such an urbanised area as Flanders. Action should be undertaken urgently, so that foresters become better prepared to act in an urbanised or urbanising society. This is also important for the image of forestry. The implementation of innovative concepts and multidisciplinary skills within the forestry practice will arm forestry to be prepared for the future.

Figure 4. School children planting the first trees of the Park Forest; notice the tractors in the background protesting against this first tree planting (November 2002) (Griet Buyse, © Flemish Forest Organisation)

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References Buyse, G. & Gijsel, K., 2002. Parkbos. An urban forest for Ghent. Lay-man’ s report for LIFE99ENV/B/000650 “ Development of a policy implementation model for local governments with regard to sustainable environmental planning in urbanised areas on the basis of a case study: Ghent urban forest” . Flemish Forest Organisation, Melle. De Vreese, R., Gijlsel, K., Wildemeersch, D. & Janssens, C., 2002. Realising new urban forests in Flanders –broadening the public support base. Poster presented at the IUFRO European Regional Conference “ Forestry Serving Urbanised Societies” , Copenhagen, Denmark, 27 –30 August 2002. Abstract published in Urban Forestry and Urban Greening. Supplement (2002), 59. Nachtergaele, J., De Vreese, R., Vanhaeren, R. & Van Slycken, J., 2002. Realizing Urban Forests in Flanders: a Policy Perspective. Paper presented at the Final Seminar of the COST E12 action Urban Forests and Trees, “ Integrating Research and Practice –Optimal Use of Open Space in Europe” , Bruges, Belgium, 14 June 2002. Proceedings of the COST E12 action Urban Forests and Trees. To be published. Van Elegem, B., Embo, T., Muys, B. & Lust, N., 2000. A methodology to select the best locations for new urban forests using multicriteria analysis. Forestry, 75, 13-23. Wildemeersch, D., Janssens, C. & De Vreese, R., 2003 . Draagvlakverbreding bij de planning, de implementatie en het beheer van stadsrandbossen in Vlaanderen. Ontwikkeling van een communicatiemodel. (Broadening the support base for planning, implementation and management of urban forests in Flanders. Development of a communication model.) Research under the authority of the Ministry of the Flemish Community, Science Division. Final Report. (In Dutch).

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Educating Urban Foresters in Canada: Past, Present and Future Philip VAN WASSENAER, Urban Forestry Consultant, Canada [email protected]

Abstract Canadians can proudly claim that the term Urban Forestry was coined by Professor Eric Jorgenson, at the University of Toronto, who began researching in this field in the early 1960’ s. During his tenure at the Faculty of Forestry, Professor Jorgenson trained a group of dedicated students under him and many of these individuals continued with careers as urban foresters in various municipalities across Canada. Urban forestry has been taught at the faculty of Forestry sporadically since the sixties with periods of increased activity. Only one or two other Universities are offering any post secondary training in urban forestry and no institutions currently offer a degree programme. In many jurisdictions today, the urban forester has had no formal training in urban forest management. Many managers have a strong background in arboriculture and some have training as foresters, forestry technicians or natural resource managers. Arboricultural training in Canada is mostly facilitated through programmes offered by the International Society of Arboriculture, and programmes offered at various community colleges throughout the country. Some professional training opportunities do exist outside of the traditional institutions. As we move into the 21st century, the field of urban forestry is slowly gaining recognition by a wider audience. As many of Canada’ s urban forests decline due to old age, mounting urban stresses, exotic insect infestations and climate change, there is an increasing need for strategic planning and proactive management of these green infrastructure assets. The increasing level of pubic awareness and concern reflects these needs. Currently there is a shortage of trained urban foresters and very few places for interested individuals to obtain the necessary training. Recently the issues of the urban forest have been included in the National Forest Strategy for Canada. It is hoped that this important first step will lead to a steady change in the way urban forestry issues are addressed in Canada and that new opportunities for education will arise.

Paper

Professor Eric Jorgenson, at the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto (U of T) began researching the field of Urban Forestry in the early 1960s. The actual term came about when a graduate student, Willem Morsink, proposed to change his thesis topic from Forest Pathology to Municipal Tree Management in Urban Areas. Erik knew that the conservative faculty would require the program title to include Forestry so he quickly devised the new term, Urban Forestry. During his tenure at the Faculty of Forestry, Professor Jorgenson trained a group of dedicated students and many of these individuals continued with careers as urban foresters in various municipalities across Canada. Jorgenson’ s vision for the urban forests was recorded in the Toronto Star in 1971: “ New buildings are obliterating Toronto’ s sense of permanency and stability, he says, and the way to restore it is to cover the city with enduring trees. Doing so will provide physiological, psychological and other environmental benefits for the urban population, who will spend a great deal of their daily lives experiencing this urban environment” . Erik also was the driving force behind the creation of the Ontario Shade Tree Council, which has focussed on the well being of shade trees in urban settings since 1965. This Council has, as of the year 2000, changed its focus from shade trees to one that focuses on the well being of the urban forest for the benefit of urbanites. This change of focus is expressed as a change in name to that of the Ontario Urban Forest Council.

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When urban forestry was no longer supported by the Faculty in the early 1970s, Erik moved on and eventually finished his career as the director of the Arboretum at the University of Guelph. Urban forestry has been taught at the faculty of Forestry sporadically since his departure with periods of increased activity. In 1996, the Faculty launched the new Masters of Forest Conservation (MFC) program with an Urban Forestry stream. This program provided the only opportunity for post-secondary education in Urban Forestry in Canada. The professionally oriented degree programme strove to develop future urban forest managers by providing students with a range of practical skills to work in a multi-disciplinary environment. Dr. Andy Kenney, an urban forester, developed and delivered the majority of the courses in the urban forestry programme. While a number of students graduated from the program, few have remained in the field of Urban Forestry. Unfortunately, urban forestry died another death at the Faculty when the urban stream was dropped from the MFC curriculum. Although the programme still offers a graduate course in Urban Forest Conservation and one in Tree Biology and Arboriculture, there is no longer a separate, recognized Urban Forestry stream. Students with an interest in urban forestry can pursue this aspect through other courses. Only two other Universities are offering any post secondary training in Urban Forestry. The University of Winnipeg in Manitoba offers a fourth year urban forestry course as part of a forest ecology major delivered via the Environmental Studies program and the Centre for Forest Interdisciplinary Research. There is also a three week field module in urban forestry for the students in the program. Lakehead University, in Thunder Bay, Ontario, offers a third-year elective in Urban Forestry in its Faculty of Forestry and Forest Conservation. There are no institutions that currently offer a degree programme. In many jurisdictions today, the urban forester has had no formal training in urban forest management. Many managers have a strong background in arboriculture and some have training as foresters, forestry technicians or natural resource managers. Arboricultural training in Canada is mostly facilitated through programmes offered by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA), and programmes offered at various community colleges throughout the country. Some professional training opportunities do exist outside of the traditional institutions such as courses offered by the Arbormaster training group in both Canada and the USA. Occasionally other events relevant to the training of urban foresters are held at various locations. The ISA has been including urban forest streams in some of their annual educational conferences. On May 5th, 2003 at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, a workshop entitled “ Achieving our Goals for Urban Woodlands”was held and was described as a workshop for arborists, urban foresters, planners, park managers, environmental consultants and others with an interest in Ontario's urban woodlands. The event was a combination of presentations and breakout sessions to answer a set of questions relevant to the planning and management of urban woodlands. The workshop will contribute to the research of David Schmidt who is working on a Masters thesis exploring the current state of woodland management in urban areas of Ontario. In September, 2001, Dr. Andy Kenney, Danijela Puric- Mladenovic and the author held a one-day workshop on strategic planning for small communities. Entitled “ Neighbourwoods: Moving from Planting Trees to Planning Forests” , the seminar was designed to present community members with a philosophy and perspective on urban forestry, a simplified method to conduct computerized inventories, and some strategic planning approaches to be utilized once the inventory information was collected and analyzed. The Canadian Urban Forest Conference has been held five times at various locations throughout Canada. In 1992, two national organizations with similar objectives - the National Community Tree Foundation (now The Tree Canada Foundation) and the Canadian Forestry Association - determined that there was a need for those involved in the greening of Canadian cities and towns to come together to network, learn, and exchange information.

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It was decided that the City of Winnipeg, with its long history of urban forestry, Dutch Elm disease control programs, excellent facilities, and a strong volunteer movement dedicated to city trees and green spaces, would be the ideal location. A committee was formed with representation from the two lead agencies, the City of Winnipeg, the Manitoba Forestry Association, the International Society of Arboriculture Prairie Chapter, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Canadian Forestry Service to plan the first event of its kind in Canada. The National Community Tree Foundation and the Canadian Forestry Association determined, based on feedback from participants at the first event in Winnipeg, that these events should be held every two years. Subsequently, four more conferences have been held. The Ontario Urban Forest Council, the Region of York and Tree Canada Foundation hosted the 5th Canadian Urban Forest Conference in Markham Ontario from October 7 to 9, 2002. The theme of the conference was: “ Urban Forest Planning: Sustainable Forests for Healthy Communities” . The organizing committee was determined that the conference would be more than a three-day series of presentations. The goal was to ensure that the conference would be a starting point for a collaborative, sustained, and nationally based effort to advance urban forestry in Canada. Delegates were brought up-to-date through a series of presentations in a Cross Canada Checkup forum. Invited papers dealt with a broad range of issues related to urban forests and planning. Presentations were in three concurrent streams addressing urban forests and planning at the single-tree, community, and bioregional levels. A series of “ break-out sessions” took place. Participants in each of the seven facilitated sessions were asked to develop a list of the highest priority issues relating to their particular session. They were then asked to identify action items relating to each of these issues. Participants in the workshops identified the following as important initiatives to address the issues of urban forestry research and education. 1. Enhance Urban Forest Research o Establish a national centre for urban forestry research, development, technology transfer and international cooperation. o Establish provincial/territorial extension services for urban forestry. o Ensure that urban forestry has prominence in the National Forest Strategy. . 2. Develop Urban Forestry Education and Training Programs o Assess current level of formal and informal training across the country. o Develop a curriculum for post secondary programs and promote its adoption at educational institutions. o Encourage, promote, and link continuing education programs involved in urban forestry. These issues and actions items formed the basis of a submission to the National Forest Strategy Coalition intended to ensure that Canada’ s urban forests, the forests where the vast majority of Canadians live and work, were included in the next version of the National Forest Strategy. A concerted effort was made throughout the consultative process and at a national forum to ensure that this message was carried consistently forward. This effort was rewarded when the new Strategy was unveiled at the 9th National Forest Congress held in the nation’ s capital, Ottawa, on May 1st and 2nd, 2003.While previous strategies had failed to acknowledge Urban Forestry, it was referenced throughout the new document. One of only eight objectives in the new strategy deals specifically with this important component of Canada’ s forest. The new Urban Forestry objective is as follows: Objective 6: Actively engage Canadians in sustaining the diversity of benefits underlying the importance of Canada’ s forest by: a) Establishing mechanisms to advance the planning, maintenance and management of the urban forest based on an ecosystem-based approach; and Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 19/132 www.efuf.org

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b) Enhancing communication and outreach programs. Action Items 6.1 Develop and implement a national urban forestry strategy. 6.2 Develop guidelines and support tools to help municipalities maintain and enhance their urban forest. 6.3 Develop guidelines and support tools to protect the surrounding forest and watersheds from urban pollution. 6.4 Establish research priorities for urban forestry in Canada and explore funding mechanisms to implement these priorities. 6.5 Develop and implement a communications strategy to inform the public about how the forest contributes to their quality of life. 6.6 Develop educational initiatives and programs that will inform youth about forest stewardship and engage them in local forest stewardship programs. 6.7 Identify unique and threatened habitats in and near large and small municipalities and develop and implement strategies to ensure their conservation. Another recent development is that the Professional Foresters Act of Ontario (2002) incorporates urban forestry in its scope of practice.(Chapter 18, Statutes of Ontario, 2000 “ An Act respecting the regulation of the practice of Professional Forestry” , Bill 110). The text from the document is as follows: “Scope of practice” 3. (1) The practice of professional forestry is the provision of services in relation to the development, management, conservation and sustainability of forests and urban forests where those services require knowledge, training and experience equivalent to that required to become a member under this Act and includes, (a) the designing, specifying or approving of silvicultural prescriptions and treatments, including timber harvesting; (b) the appraisal, evaluation and certification of forests and urban forests; (c) the auditing of forest management practices; (d) the assessment of impacts from planned activities on forests and urban forests; (e) the classification, inventory and mapping of forests and urban forests; and (f) the planning and locating of forest transportation systems, including forest roads. Registered Professional Forester (RPF) status has some very strict requirements in Ontario, but there is no requirement in the curriculum of a classically trained forester for education in urban forestry. Although these requirements are currently under review, the new act demands that RPF’ s be utilized in the management of urban forests, even though a vast majority of them have no training or experience in this realm. These inconsistencies must be addressed and perhaps a new designation of Registered Professional Urban Forester will arise. While it is not in Canada, it is interesting to note that the state of California, USA, is currently developing a statewide Urban Forester Certification program. This program recognizes the need for a variety of professional skills beyond the scope of a certified arborist and different from a traditional forester. For more information, visit: http://www.caufc.org/certification.html. It has also been mentioned recently that the International Society of Arboriculture is considering developing a Municipal Arborist Certification programme, but details on this initiative are limited at this time. As we move into the 21st century, the field of urban forestry is slowly gaining recognition by a wider audience. As many of Canada’ s urban forests decline due to old age, mounting urban stresses, exotic insect infestations and climate change, there is an increasing need for strategic planning and proactive management of these green infrastructure assets. The increasing level of pubic awareness and concern reflects these needs. A recent survey of urbanites across Southern Ontario gave some encouraging and somewhat surprising results. When asked “ How important to you are the trees you see on private and public land in your local community?” , 85 % said that they were very important and 14 % said they were somewhat important. This Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 20/132 www.efuf.org

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response was indicative of the type of positive responses that repeatedly came up in the survey. Despite these encouraging findings, the other less formal side of “ education”also requires significant attention. There is a parallel need to educate the public, other professionals and policy makers. This may be just as crucial as educating the urban forestry staff. Currently there is a shortage of trained urban foresters and very few places for interested individuals to obtain the necessary training. With the recent inclusion of urban forests in the National Forest Strategy for Canada it is hoped that this important first step will lead to a steady change in the way urban forestry issues are addressed in Canada and that new opportunities for education will arise. Collaboration with other researchers and practitioners from around the world will help to hasten the development of effective multidisciplinary training programs for urban forest managers in Canada. Urban foresters, municipal arborists, and similar professionals will require a combination of forestry and/or natural resource management training, knowledge of the principles of ecological planning, a good understanding of arboricultural technology and various social skills to become effective managers of this valuable resource. To end on a positive note it should be pointed out that despite the lack of provincial and Federal involvement in Urban Forestry, municipalities across the country are developing innovative and progressive urban forestry programmes. Cities such as Surrey, British Columbia, Calgary, Alberta, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Toronto, Ontario, Ottawa, Ontario, Windsor, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec and Halifax, Nova Scotia are regional centres of urban forestry innovation and leadership. Many smaller municipalities are also recognizing the value of urban forest management. Thunder Bay, Ontario has an urban forester on staff and has developed a computerized inventory as a management tool. Kenora, Ontario is currently in the process of developing an urban forest management strategy. These two communities are of particular note in that they are located in the Northwest corner of Ontario, an area characterized by lakes, forests and wilderness and few urban centres!

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Proceedings of the Sixth IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry “Educating the Urban Foresters”

Higher Education of Urban Foresters in Europe: Status and Prospects Thomas B. RANDRUP, Cecil C. KONIJNENDIJK Skov & Landskab, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, Copenhagen, Denmark [email protected], [email protected] Summary

In order to meet the demands of modern, information-based society, higher education in natural resource management needs to be transformed. Enhanced mobility of students and staff, multi- and transdisciplinary approaches, as well as innovative educational approaches are called for. Moreover, the urban component needs to be better incorporated, as exemplified by the emerging field of urban forestry. This paper relates to the developments in higher education within the context of education on urban forests and urban trees in Europe. Presented here are the main findings of a comparative European study led by the Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute within the framework of the EU-funded COST Action E12 ‘ Urban Forests and Trees’ . Results show that urban forestry is an expanding element of European education, as urban elements are becoming incorporated in higher education on natural resources. Urban forestry is primarily taught as a part of educational programmes in related disciplines rather than at a more integrative level, dealing with all elements of urban green structures. Student numbers in urban forestry programmes and courses are still relatively small. High staff-to-student ratios seem to facilitate the use of a wide range of educational approaches and methods. Higher education on urban forestry involves a broad range of disciplines and tries to find ways of incorporating natural and social science approaches. Together with the general trend towards internationalisation in education, this calls for better cooperation between educational institutions, nationally and internationally. Last, the visions for a new international educational initiative within Urban Forestry education are presented.

Introduction

In its world declaration on higher education for the 21st century, UNESCO (1998) identified some of the major challenges for higher education as being: - the need to offer relevant and high-quality education based on societal demands; - the need to develop partnerships for higher education, for example between the public and private sector; - the need for innovative multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in higher education; - the need to enhance international cooperation and exchange in higher education. Similar challenges were identified at major meetings on higher education in Europe, e.g., suggesting mechanisms to facilitate the international mobility of students and staff. These mechanisms would include harmonised educational structures, credit transfer systems, and teaching in major European languages (Sorbonne Declaration, 1998; Lust & Nachtergale, 2000). These developments show the importance of regularly and critically reviewing existing education programmes in order to see if the existing offer still meets societal demands. The call for major transformations in higher education has also affected education in natural resource management, including forestry, ecology, nature management, landscape architecture and other fields. Societal demands for and pressures on natural resources have changed dramatically over recent decades, which means that new types of natural resource professionals with closer ties to society are asked for (e.g. Kennedy and Thomas, 1995).

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Within forestry, the discussion on the future of higher forestry education has been rather intense during the past decade. Lust & Nachtergale (2000) provided an overview of several European workshops held on forestry education, as well as of a number of reports issued as inputs to the debates. Several authors (Konijnendijk, 1995; Schmidt et al., 1998; Lust & Nachtergale, 2000) identified similar key elements of future forestry education, among which: - Enhancing the (international) mobility of students and staff in European higher education on forestry, for example by means of better credit transfer systems and curriculum harmonisation. A better mobility is also related to enhancing lifelong learning opportunities. A number of universities offering higher forestry education has benefited from being part of an international exchange programme for students and staff, but international exchange and cooperation could be developed further. - Promoting multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches in which natural and social sciences are combined. Traditional forestry education focuses very much on the natural sciences and social aspects are not always properly integrated. - Developing innovative educational approaches and methods, including problem-oriented education and better use of information technologies. Education should be more directed towards individual student needs. The traditional lecture still dominates in current forestry education in many European countries. Those involved in discussions on transforming forestry and natural resource education also mention urbanisation as a main factor to take into account. Natural resource managers are increasingly operating in or near urban environments. Traditionally, they have not been educated to deal with the demands and pressures of urban societies. This has led to a call for better inclusion of the 'urban element' into natural resource management education (e.g. Konijnendijk, 1995; Kennedy and Thomas, 1995; Schmidt et al., 1998). Higher education on urban forests and trees The attention for the urban dimension of natural resource management has steadily increased over the years. This is for example illustrated by the emergence of urban forestry as an interdisciplinary approach towards the planning, design, establishment, and management of all forest and tree resources in and near urban areas (e.g. Miller, 1997; Forrest et al., 1999). Initiatives such as COST Action E12 'Urban Forests and Trees', a network of European urban forestry researchers funded by the European Union1, were set up to further develop research on urban forests and trees. In 1999, the Action was also given a mandate to inventory existing higher education on urban forests and urban trees in Europe, and to identify future educational needs. This task was commissioned to the Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute, coordinator of COST E12. It carried out a review of higher education on urban forests and urban trees in Europe in 1999 and 2000, in close collaboration with COST E12. Objectives of the study were to: - document the efforts being undertaken in urban forestry higher education in Europe today (within the COST E12 expert network it was known at the outset of the study that specific higher education on urban forestry in Europe was a very recent phenomenon, probably emerging during the mid-1990s); - define general characteristics, problems and opportunities; - facilitate the establishment of international cooperation in urban forestry higher education.

COST stands for ‘ European cooperation in the field of scientific and technical research’ , and has as its main objective the coordination of national research at the European level. COST Action E12 ‘ Urban Forests and Trees’is one of nearly 200 COST Actions. It was operative from 1997 until 2002, and involved more than 80 experts from 22 European countries. The main objective of the Action was to improve the knowledge-base needed for better planning, design, establishment and management of urban forests and urban trees in Europe, and, by doing this, to establish urban forestry as a scientific domain in Europe (COST E12, 1997). 1

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Methodology Study topic ‘ Urban forests’and ‘ urban trees’were defined as forest stands and trees with amenity values situated in or near urban areas. Interactions between human society and the urban forest resource were categorised into three main groups, as presented in Table 1. This categorisation focuses on the preferred form and functions of urban forests and ways to manage the resource to achieve these. Table 1. Matrix describing the different elements of urban forestry (modified from Nilsson et al., 2001) Street trees

Urban parks and gardens

Urban and peri-urban woodlands

Form, functions, policies, planning and design Selection of plants and establishment methods Management

In accordance with this matrix, the educational offers included in this review had to deal with one or more of the following aspects: function, planning, design, selection, establishment and management of urban woodlands, parks and/or street trees. Higher education was defined as education at the level of a B.Sc. (Bachelor of Science) or comparable degree (such as Bachelor of Art, some types of forest engineers), and higher (including Master and Ph.D.). A differentiation was made between the following elements of education: 1. Urban forestry degree programmes or curricula. 2. Urban forestry courses or modules. Schmidt et al. (1998) defined a course as a teaching module on a specific subject, whereas all courses together make up a degree programme or a curriculum resulting in a higher degree. Data collection For detailed information on data collection, and data analysis, please see Andersen et al. (2002).

Results and discussion Of the 28 countries contacted, the following 24 responded, making them the focus of this survey: Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. The respondents of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, and Yugoslavia responded that in their opinion, they did not offer higher education on urban forestry. Completed questionnaires and other detailed information were received from 61 departments at 49 educational institutions, describing 31 degree-programmes and 191 courses/modules. The following results are based on the data provided by these 61 departments. The positive responses were distributed as seen in Table 2.

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Table 2. Distribution of positive responses to the questionnaire on higher education in urban forestry. The table shows the number of educational institutions and related departments offering urban forestry education activities (first row). Of these, some supplied the questionnaire with detailed information (second row), while others just indicated that they offered urban forestry education activities. The numbers in the second row, are those primarily dealt with in the study.

Offered urban forestry education Supplied detailed information

Educational institutions 70

Departmen ts 84

49

61

European urban forestry education - development The development in student numbers and the development in the number of educational offers at the institutions were surveyed. Retrospective data as well as information on future expectations were gathered. Over the past 10 years, student numbers have increased for 17 % of the courses/modules and 35 % of the degree programmes. Numbers decreased only in 1 % of the courses/modules and 10 % of the degree programmes. In future, the respondents expect student numbers to increase in 42 % of the degree programmes, and decrease only in 6 % of these programmes. The departments experiencing an unchanged situation or an increase in the number of urban forestry-related degree programmes and courses/modules are dominant in all four cases. Focusing on the differences, the figure seems to indicate a shift from developing new courses/modules towards developing new degree programmes. More than half (54 %) of the departments had developed new courses/modules over the past 10 years, whereas only 36 % of the departments were planning to develop new courses/modules in the future. Regarding the degree programmes, 18 % of the departments had developed new programmes over the past 10 years, but 25 % of the departments planned to develop new programmes in the future. The questionnaire did not define time-scale and probability in relation to expected development. This may have influenced the comparability of the responses. It is not expected, however, to have influenced the main finding, which is: European student interest in urban forestry and the offer of urban forestry higher education have both increased over the past 10 years, and are likely to continue to increase. When comparing these results with a review of urban forestry education in the United States (Hildebrandt et al., 1993), similar trends were identified regarding the significant growth of urban forestry as an educational discipline. The increasing importance of urban forestry was also identified in a report on forestry education in Europe issued by a network of European universities offering forestry education (Schmidt et al., 1998). The role and size of urban forestry education As seen in Table 3, student numbers in urban forestry-related education were generally found to be below 30, with the largest group of programmes (39 %) enrolling 11-20 students per annum. At the same time, the vast majority of urban forestry-related education - 89 % of the courses/modules and 74 % of the degree programmes - was being taught at bachelor and master levels. The courses/modules were almost evenly distributed between the bachelor- and master-levels (43 and 49 %, respectively), whereas the largest group of programmes (45 %) were at the bachelor-level. Seen in this context, student numbers seem relatively low, indicating that the status of urban forestry at many European educational institutions is that of a specialised niche, rather than of a large, independent field.

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Proceedings of the Sixth IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry “Educating the Urban Foresters” Table 3. Student numbers in higher urban forestry education in Europe Number of students per annum

Percentage of degree programmes

Percentage of courses / modules

50 Not answered* Total

16 13 39 3 10 6 13

3 6 18 13 6 2 52

100

100

* The percentage of ‘ not answered’in relation to courses / modules was primarily due to 39 % of the courses being mentioned in the additional survey where this specific question was not included. The additional survey was needed to obtain additional information on the contents and scope of the education offer in urban forestry (e.g. size of the urban forestry component in course offered). It was kept simple due to time constraints and to encourage a high response rate.

When asked to describe degree programmes that explicitly deal with urban forestry, the 61 responding departments described 31 individual degree programmes. An examination of the degree programme titles showed that only 8 of these programmes (26 %) had the terms urban / community forestry as part of their title (Table 4). Although the possibilities of drawing conclusions on the content of a degree programme based on its title are limited, the distribution of, and variation in title keywords indicate that urban forestry is only to a limited extent established as an independent field of higher education in Europe. However, urban forestry seems to be an important element of several other fields of higher education, for instance landscape architecture and horticulture. Table 4. Presence of keywords in degree programme titles identified through the questionnaire on higher education on urban forestry in Europe Keywords in degree programme titles Landscape Architecture / Design / Planning Urban Forestry, Urban / Community Forest Management (Landscape) Gardening Arboriculture Horticulture Other

No. of times the keyword appeared 8 8 6 4 4 28

Multidisciplinary approach The departments involved in the study were asked to define their main areas of expertise. Thirty-eight different disciplines were mentioned. The overall average (courses and modules) was 3.4 disciplines per department, ranging between 1 and 11 different types of expertise per department. The departments that offered urban forestry-related degree programmes mentioned 28 different disciplines as main expertise of their degree programme teaching staff, the average being 5.6 disciplines per degree programme (ranging between 1 and 11). Master and Ph.D. level degree programmes recruit students that have already acquired a disciplinary background. The number of different student backgrounds in urban forestryrelated Master or Ph.D. level degree programmes was 18, with an average of 3.5 different student backgrounds per degree programme (ranging between 2 and 6). The variety in main expertise of the departments (28) may be lower, as the characteristics of a few of the responses indicated that they concerned the faculty or even university-level rather than the targeted department/section/unit-level. Additionally, different interpretations of the word ‘ main’can have resulted in different departments having an uneven impact on the Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 27/132 www.efuf.org

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results. It should also be noted that the results regarding student background were based on a relatively small amount of data (13 degree programmes). However, these reservations still allow for the following conclusions: There is strong variation in the disciplinary approach to urban forestry education in Europe. Each urban forestry-related degree programme involves a wide spectrum of staff expertise, and the urban forestry-related Master/Ph.D. programmes attract students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds. Seen as a whole, European urban forestry-related education involves a broad range of disciplines. The characteristically varied and multidisciplinary character of urban forestry education was also noted in the review of urban forestry education in the United States (Hildebrandt et al., 1993). This may be interpreted as a lack of homogeneity and of clear standards in urban forestry education. As mentioned, however, the world declaration on higher education for the twenty-first century (UNESCO, 1998) states that higher education should reinforce its role of service to society, mainly through an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach in the analysis of problems and issues. In that context, it may be stated that the multidisciplinary character of urban forestry higher education meets modern demands and could become one of the primary strengths of the discipline. From the types of department main expertise mentioned by at least 20 % of the departments, a 'top 8' emerged. When comparing this with the ‘ top 8’of staff expertise mentioned in urban forestry-related degree programmes, and the ‘ top 8’student backgrounds in urban forestryrelated Master/Ph.D degree programmes, 6 disciplines recurred in all three categories. These disciplines are Arboriculture, Biology, Forestry, Horticulture, Landscape Architecture, and (Landscape) Ecology. Although their individual ranking varied for the three categories, they all appeared to be central to urban forestry-related education in Europe. In an overview of urban forestry research in Europe (Konijnendijk et al., 2000), main disciplinary backgrounds of institutes involved in research on urban forests and urban trees were identified. The six central disciplines identified above are part of the top 9 disciplines in the research overview (note: horticulture and arboriculture were combined in the research overview), indicating that these six disciplines are central, not only in urban forestry higher education, but also in urban forestry research in Europe. In the research overview, forestry and horticulture (in combination with arboriculture) were found to be the clearly dominant disciplines, whereas the distribution of central disciplines in urban forestry higher education was relatively even, indicating that no single discipline is dominant in European urban forestry-related higher education. Integrating natural and social sciences Transformations in natural resource management in higher education should also encompass a better integration between the natural and social sciences. Considering the importance of urban forests and trees as contributors to urban public space and recreational possibilities in the urban environment (e.g. Bradley, 1995; Kennedy & Thomas, 1995; Ball, 1997), it might have been expected that social sciences and aesthetics have been central disciplines in urban forestry higher education. The results show however, that most central disciplines in European urban forestry higher education mentioned above have - traditionally - been primarily related to natural sciences. Keeping in mind that the reservations regarding data quality mentioned above also apply here, the data seemed to indicate that overall, higher education on urban forestry in Europe has placed low emphasis on disciplines related to social sciences and aesthetics. These were found among the expertise of departments and degree programme teaching staff, but they were varied, infrequently occurring and unevenly distributed.

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Educational strategies and approaches UNESCO and others call for a diversification of educational approaches and teaching methods, for example in terms of enhancing group work, problem-oriented learning and the use of information technology. How does this relate to urban forestry education in Europe? The average number of educational approaches or methods applied in each degree programme is 4.8, ranging between 3 and 9, indicating a variation in European urban forestry-related educational programmes. The two approaches or methods that are applied within more than 80 % of the degree programmes are lectures and practical training/field work. The role of practical training and fieldwork is relatively large, which follows the suggestion for developing this strategy by for example UNESCO (1998). Within Europe, this method has been identified as one possibility for moving from teaching to self-managed learning. This change requires a stronger emphasis on the personal skills of students, a point that has also been identified within forestry education (Schmidt et al., 1998). The educational approaches or methods ‘ group work’(e.g. project-oriented group work) and ‘ workshops’are both relevant in the development of such skills, and the complex nature of urban forestry only seems to strengthen the case for the application of such strategies. Within traditional forestry education, some concern has been raised on how a change from relatively inexpensive lectures to more labour-intensive teaching forms could be financed (Schmidt et al., 1998). In this respect, possibilities of applying educational methods that develop the personal skills of the students seem relatively good in urban forestry higher education. This relates to the current role of urban forestry education as a specialised niche, and the high staff-student ratio. The largest group of degree programmes (42 %) involved more than 5 staff members and the most common annual student number on degree programmes was 11-20 students (39 %). Although no systematic comparison with other relevant education was made, the researchers feel that this indicates that European urban forestry higher education has a relatively high staff number per student. The necessity of covering a broad range of disciplines could perhaps explain the need for a relatively high number of individual staff members. A conflict may exist at the individual urban forestry-related degree programme between the need for qualified education involving a wide range of disciplines and the need to keep staff numbers at a realistic level compared to student numbers. If this is the case, increased cooperation, internally at the educational institutions and nationally and internationally between institutions, could be a realistic strategy to insure high quality multidisciplinary education in combination with effective use of staff resources. This stresses the point of enhanced mobility again.

Conclusion

The review of urban forestry higher education dealt with a field of education that is in its infancy in most parts of Europe. Consequently, no clear and generally accepted definitions exist. Although a definition of urban forestry education was included in the questionnaire, the results presented here are still based on a heterogeneous group of departments. This group consisted of departments that were considered to be relevant by the national co-ordinator / contact, and which identified their own educational offers as being urban forestry-related. Furthermore, in spite of a considerable effort, a number of contacted departments, institutions and even nations did not respond to the survey. It is therefore likely that relevant European urban forestry-related programmes or courses/modules exist but were not included in the review. Consequently, the presented survey should not be regarded as a complete overview of European higher education on urban forestry. The review did, however, compile information on many of the efforts being undertaken in urban forestry higher education in Europe today. Through the data analysis presented above the review also identified a number of general opportunities in European higher education on Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 29/132 www.efuf.org

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urban forestry, making it possible to address these at the European level. The primary opportunities identified by the researchers concern: - Enhancing student and staff mobility, for example via the development of systems for credit transfer, international cooperation and recognition of degrees and diplomas. Urban forestry degree programmes currently result in a wide range of degrees, not all following the B.Sc.-M.Sc.-Ph.D. system. Some inspiration may be gained from the United States, where the Society of Municipal Arborists developed standards and procedures for programmes that grant degrees in urban forestry (Miller, 1994). European higher education in forestry has also benefited from an international exchange programme for students and staff (Schmidt et al., 1998). - A further development of inter- and transdisciplinary approaches, corresponding to the multidisciplinary character of urban forestry and urban forestry education. - A better integration of natural and social sciences, which means a stronger emphasis on disciplines related to social sciences and aesthetics than for example is the case in most forestry education in Europe (Schmidt et al., 1998). Themes to be addressed may be the role of urban forestry in relation to aesthetics of the urban public space, recreational demands of the urban population, public participation, conflict management, and so forth. It could be relevant to review existing social sciences education in e.g. forestry, landscape ecology and landscape architecture, as well as existing aesthetics-education in for example landscape architecture. - Further emphasis on teaching methods that develop personal skills and adapt to the complex character of urban forestry, e.g. practical training, fieldwork, group work and workshops. At the University of Wisconsin (USA), urban forestry degree programme students are encouraged to participate in a summer internship, the experience being that this makes them more desirable to employers upon graduation (Miller, 2001). Similar arrangements are already also encouraged or obligatory in many European universities (see e.g. Schmidt et al., 1998). In short, the review has provided a necessary first foundation for the further development of European higher education on urban forestry. This field of education acts as an example of current transformations in higher education throughout the world, driven by rapid societal changes. As an emerging field of education, it is trying to answer the calls for mobility and internationalisation, multi- and transdisciplinarity, integration of natural and social science approaches, and innovative educational methods.

Future perspectives In 2001 a group of scientists/teachers at The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, (SLU), in Alnarp, The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University (KVL, Copenhagen, Denmark), and The Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute, (DFLRI), initiated a cooperation, aiming at the establishment of a joint Master (MSc) programme in Urban Forestry / Urban Greening. The intention was to launch the programme internationally and to meet the increasing interest in this in society and among professionals.

Action plan

The overall visions for the programme are that the two-year Master Course will be an integrative and interdisciplinary programme, focusing on the urban green resource at large, involving individual trees and urban green spaces, including urban and peri-urban forests (woodlands). The primary location of the programme is Southern Scandinavia. Areas of academic focus range from the strategic level (planning, policies and design) to technical operations, and involve various disciplinary perspectives (natural, social and applied sciences). The basis will be a combination of landscape architecture and forestry as the two leading academic backgrounds. Thus, mutual respect, understanding and complementarities are valuable assets of the programme. The programme will build on a strong link between science and practice, and as such will deal with the wide variety of actors and aspects related to the urban green resource. Actors include Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 30/132 www.efuf.org

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politicians, public officials, private enterprises, interest groups and the public. Aspects include economy, culture and history, environment and social issues. Students will be attracted from a variety of academic backgrounds, and are believed to come from Scandinavia, Europe and the world at large. Some courses will be common for all students, and others will fill gaps in the individual student’ s knowledge base. M.Sc. papers (thesis work) may be empirical, based on cases and related to practice, or may have a more theoretical, fundamental character focusing on system and strategy development. Thus, individual knowledge regarding green resources, methods and approaches is a strength for case- and problem-oriented group work. All courses in the programme will be taught in English, but following a clear Scandinavian approach. Graduate students are expected to find employment in the ‘ traditional’public and private sectors, as well as in research. However, a new area of international employment opportunities is likely to be developed with institutions such as FAO and EU in mind.

Acknowledgements

Major parts of this paper were previously published in Andersen et al. (2002). The authors would like to thank the national co-ordinators and the staff at all the contributing institutions. Without the considerable efforts of all these individuals, it would have been impossible to reach the objectives of the review. We would also like to express our gratitude to the COST –Forest and Forestry Products Technical Committee for co-financing the project.

References

Andersen, F., C.C. Konijnendijk & T.B. Randrup, 2002. Higher Education on Urban Forestry in Europe: An Overview. Forestry, 75(5), 501-511. Ball, J., 1997. On the urban edge: a new and enhanced role for foresters. Journal of Forestry 95(10), 6-10. Bradley, G.A. (ed.), 1995. Urban forest landscapes: integrating multidisciplinary perspectives. University of Washington Press, Seattle/London. COST E12, 1997. Memorandum of understanding –COST Action E12 Urban Forests and Trees. COST secretariat. Brussels, Belgium. Forrest, M., Konijnendijk, C.C., and Randrup, T.B. (eds.), 1999. Research and development in urban forestry in Europe. Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, Luxembourg. Hildebrandt, R.E., Floyd, D.W. and Koslowsky, K.M., 1993. A review of urban forestry education in the 1990s. Journal of Forestry 91(3), 40-42. Kennedy, J.J. and Thomas, J.W., 1995. Managing natural resources as social value. In A new century for natural resources management. R.L. Knight and S.F. Bates (eds.) Island Press, Washington D.C. and Covelo, pp. 311-319. Konijnendijk, C.C., 1995. Educating foresters of the 21st century. Unasylva 46(182), 76-80. Konijnendijk, C.C., Randrup, T.B. and Nilsson, K. 2000. Urban forestry research in Europe: An overview. Journal of Arboriculture 26(3), 152-161. Lust, N. and Nachtergale, L. ,2000. Challenges for the European higher education with special reference to forestry. Silva Gandavensis 65, 10-20. Manheim, J. B., Rich, R.C., Bahry, D.L. and Schrodt, P.A., 1991. Empirical Policy Analysis. Third edition. Longman, New York [etc.], New York. Miller, R.W., 1994. Urban forestry education –traditions and possibilities. Journal of Forestry 92 (10), 26-27. Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 31/132 www.efuf.org

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Miller, R.W., 1997. Urban forestry: planning and managing urban greenspaces. Second edition. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River. Miller, R.W., 2001. Urban forestry in third level education –the US experience. In Planting the idea - The role of education in urban forestry. Collins, K.D. and Konijnendijk, C.C. (eds.). Proceedings of the COST Action 'Urban Forests and Trees' seminar in Dublin, 23 March, 2000. The Tree Council of Ireland, Dublin, pp. 49-57. Nilsson, K., T.B. Randrup and Wandall B.lM., 2001. Trees in the Urban Environment. In The Forest Handbook, Vol. I. Evans, J. (ed.). Blackwell Science, Oxford, England, pp. 347-361. Randrup, T.B., Konijnendijk, C.C. and Andersen, F., 2001. Review of higher education on urban forestry in Europe. Report of COST Action E12 'Urban Forests and Trees'. Printing Office of the European Communities, Brussels. Schmidt, P., Huss, J., Lewark, S., Pettenella, D. and Saastamoinen, O. (eds.), 1998. New requirements for university education in forestry. Demeter (SOCRATES Thematic Network for Agriculture and Related Sciences) series 1. Drukkerij De Weide. Belgium. Sorbonne Declaration, 1998. http://www.education.gouv.fr/discours1998/declar.htm UNESCO, 1998. Higher education in the twenty-first century –vision and action. Final report, World Conference on Higher Education, Paris, 5-9 October 1998. UNESCO, Division of Higher Education, Paris, France.

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SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ WORKSHOP A. Communication and Public Education (1)

From research findings to practical use Liselott ERIKSSON, The Swedish Forestry Association, Sweden [email protected]

This Swedish project has set up a web based competence bank in which the users can find information and gain knowledge about research findings, practical experiences and ongoing projects. Aim of this database is to simplify communicating knowledge of the interdisciplinary subject urban forestry. The already available information on the social values of forest and nature has to gain a greater distribution. The existing research results are not accessible enough. Decision makers on a local level have little opportunities to study the information and even researchers have difficulties finding research results due to the interdisciplinary character of the subject. Many of those managing the green structure in densely populated areas, such as municipality ecologists and others, have expressed their concerns about finding information on urban forestry. There is clearly a need for advise on the practical daily management and for support to identify necessary arguments to influence decision makers to preserve the green structures in the densely populated areas. This is why The Swedish Forestry Association has set up a national competence bank on urban forestry and nature-tourism. Also, other services are linked to the competence bank: One can get help in finding events and press-clips on urban forestry and nature-tourism. In this session we aim to describe:   how we set up the competence bank in co-operation with the future users.   how we decided on the content of the competence bank.   why the competence bank is a relevant means spreading research findings.

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Learning from forest users to fit their demand Thierry Moigneu, Office National des Forêts, France [email protected]

More and more periurban foresters realize they are managing very specific spaces that add the complexity of forest ecosystems to the complexity of human beings for whom forests are run and equipped. The proportion of urban dwellers in the population is now very near 90% and the social demand towards forests is always increasing and enlarging. Managing periurban forests in a professional way requires to know the users’aspirations, either conscious or unconscious, and secondly a sensible approach of the forests to manage forest landscapes. At this moment, the French foresters’initial training is rather eclectic but provides strong basic skills in silviculture and ecology. The initial training encompasses more and more the user oriented and landscape oriented approaches but is very shy towards the knowledge provided by human sciences or techniques felt to be too subjective. Through continuous training in the field, we try to tackle that problem. Within that scope, 3 interesting experiments are described below.

1 - Campaign to heighten foresters’awareness of the importance of landscape management in the Paris Region (1992) The state forests in the Paris Region are visited about 55 million times per year. By the beginning of the 1980s a hostility arose against clear cuts and progressive regeneration felling of oak. Through this hostility, it was not possible any more to manage the forest without changing our methods. This was especially true in the Paris area. So we have asked all the foresters to attend a two day landscape training course. In the same time, regional guidelines have been elaborated and delivered to the same people. To be a success this operation required:  the commitment of the hierarchy to show that the landscape in this region has a real recreational value even if we don't know how to measure it and even if it has not a real economic value yet;  training all the personnel (200 people in one year) within a very short period;  guidelines to have the same references on a subjective topic.;  reference sites in the field to illustrate techniques and results.

2 - Life project "Urban Woods for People" In France during the 1960s and 1970s the periurban foresters’objective was to welcome as many people as possible. Equipment and facilities were built up to achieve this. Since the 1980s forest protection has become a priority. So now we try to enlarge the available panel of services in a more natural looking forest. The political goals are quite clear, but it is impossible to find any global illustration of it in the field, only occasional trials are seen. That is why the Urban Woods for People project has been set up. This project intends to demonstrate ways to increase people's recreational benefits from urban woodlands. More accurately the aim is to show that recreation management begins with a better understanding of the users’aspirations (conscious and unconscious). Once this is accomplished, a concerted Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 35/132 www.efuf.org

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management can be set up, which implies the reorganization of the recreation scheme on the basis of a new recreational zoning of the forest. These principles are very important to be explained and understood at a time where ONF (French Forest Administration) submits a very harsh budget deficit and where recreation may be perceived at first sight as a cost. The Urban Wood project aims at   providing a manual on periurban forestry;   setting up a laboratory forest which will become a pilot forest when the recreation management plan will be reorganized in the field. The pilot forest should be an illustration of the present recreation policy. For the first time in history, it will show an overview of the most efficient equipment previously tested in one forest. This forest will be then used as a support for training courses dedicated to periurban foresters from the region, the state or even further (as Johanna From explains in her paper elsewhere in these proceedings). 3 –Concerted management Within the framework of the Urban Woods for People project we set up a consultation platform with the users of the Senart Forest. We have organized this with the aim to elaborate a charter defining a strategy for the forest and its closeby urban environment. Seven working groups were formed, gathering the representatives of 14 local collectivities, the regional council, the county council and associations working within this 120 000 inhabitants area. At this moment, the consultation dynamic is operating very fruitfully. Users committees will be created. And the associations will probably be deeper involved in the management processes. For the foresters it is a real training in democratic management that requires listening to the others, cooperating with those whose knowledge of the forest is very helpful and putting the in common knowledge for the benefit of the community. These 3 experiments are examples of what is happening in the field. It is now necessary that schools of urban forestry teach their pupils that silviculture is only a tool to fulfil objectives and that users’involvement in forest planning and management is the best and most legitimate way of running urban forests.

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Outdoor recreation and the national forest service in the Netherlands Jan BLOK, State Forest Service, the Netherlands [email protected]

Abstract State Forest Service (SFF) is a public organisation with 100 years experience in the sustainable relationship between man and nature in the Netherlands. SFF manages 210.000 ha of forests and nature; so they are the largest nature management organisation in the heavily populated country. The aims of SFF are based on a multifunctional management and are striving towards development and conservation of forest, nature, landscape and cultural-historical values. The promotion of recreation is also traditionally one of the major tasks of SFF. The organisation sees recreation and nature as associates, not as opponents. Man and nature belong to each other. Recreation is important to create a social appreciation of nature and its management. For these reasons, the territories of SFF are opened for the public as much as possible and especially designed for nature-oriented recreation. Until now, managers were mainly focused on the implementation of their professional knowledge and competences within forestry and/or ecology. Recreation was secondary, without a need for a thorough knowledge of it. More and more, one becomes aware this approach does not satisfy the needs. The social need to participate within design, use and management of nature is increasing, just as the demands for accessible and experiencing nature. Also the diversity of the needs is changing: new recreational activities have to be complementary with traditional ones. The recreational offer of SFF is tuned to the needs and desires regarding the use and experience of nature, within the frame of sustainable management. New facilities for specific target groups are developed and the offer of SFF is widely announced. This new approach needs a pro-active and extrovert attitude of SFF in the future. There is clearly a need for more competences regarding recreation, but also for skills such as flexibility, entrepreneurship, creativity, taking initiatives, integrity and open communication. The well-oriented development of knowledge, skills and competences of the all employees of SFF, on all levels, is necessary to be able to implement this new approach successfully. E.g. the forest ranger will need more competences within the field of public relations and contacts with the public, the manager will have to be able to promote his interests on an efficient way. Within this paper, the following topics will be highlighted: - some background on the National Forest Service in the Netherlands; - recreational functions of the National Forest Service; - some information on the changing circumstances which led to increased emphasis on the recreational function; - the consequences for the knowledge and skills required within the organisation.

The National Forest Service in the Netherlands The National Forest Service is a public organisation which has been managing forests and rural sites for over 100 years. Initially, the National Forest Service was founded to cultivate and afforest the coastal wilderness where no lucrative agricultural exploitation was possible. Relatively soon after its foundation, the organisation also became active as a nature conservation organisation. From the 1950s onwards, this also include open air recreation which underwent an explosive growth until the 1980s. The National Forest Service manages 210,000 Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 37/132 www.efuf.org

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ha, which is approximately 5% of total surface area of the Netherlands. This makes them the largest nature management organisation in this very densely populated country. In marked contrast to what the name suggests, less than half the managed area consists of woodlands. Approximately 130,000 hectares consist of semi-natural grassland, heath land, brook valleys, flood plains, etc. The total managed area makes an important contribution to the Netherlands’ green appearance. Many of our sites feature exceptional nature, but we also manage countless landscapes and cultural historical elements. Commissioned by the national government, the National Forest Service in the Netherlands fulfils three main functions: - nature management, nature conservancy, nature development and landscape development; - the promotion of recreation and - the production of timber.

Recreation at the National Forest Service in the Netherlands

Approximately sixteen million people live in the Netherlands, which makes the country one of the most densely populated places on earth. In this framework, it is interesting to note that approximately 78.000 hectares of National Forest Service sites lies within the immediate sphere of influence of a town. Walking or cycling in nature is one of the most popular leisure activities. Approximately one hundred million visits a year are made to our sites. People visit our sites for rest and relaxation, to enjoy the natural environment, to get away from it all or perhaps to study nature. Due to the importance of nature recreation, the National Forest Service has always seen promoting recreation as one of its core tasks. That is why at least ninety percent of the National Forest Service’ s sites are open to the public. The condition is that the recreation is aimed at experiencing nature. This need not necessarily entail studying nature, enjoying a beautiful landscape is just fine too. To this end, the National Forest Service in the Netherlands offers an extensive range of facilities. Every year, approximately thirty-five million euros are spent on management related to recreation.

Changing environment/new strategy A number of developments have led us to reflect on the execution of recreation management by the National Forest Service: - the development of support for nature management; - the increasing need for participation; - the introduction of new forms of recreation and - the need for tailormade solutions: specific products for specific demands. Developing support for nature management Over the past few years, the realisation has dawned, that recreation makes a major contribution to the social appreciation of nature and nature management. In a world of increasing urbanisation, the risk exists that generations will grow up without an opportunity to experience nature. If mankind alienates itself from nature, support for nature will decline at the same time, and that will sound the death knell for nature. Our strategy therefore states: “ The National Forest Service in the Netherlands, works towards a sustainable living environment for man, flora and fauna. Our work is not just for nature, but also for people. People and nature belong together, and can, and should not be separated. We should therefore invest in broadening support for nature management, in further societal embedding.” Increasing need for participation The social need to help think out the structuring and use of the green living environment is increasing. More and more often, we are confronted by questions from citizens such as: “ I would like to let my dog off the leash somewhere. Where can I do so?”Or: “ Why has the National

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Forest Service cut down a plot of trees in the woods I always go for walking and isn’ t there another option?” Furthermore, people increasingly see public spaces as spaces they are entitled to involve themselves in the structuring and management. Trend watchers Motivaction has distinguished the principle group as the modern middle classes (young families, relatively traditional in outlook) for whom nature has become part of their living environment, what they take for granted. In their view nature is something you are entitled to use whenever you want. The National Forest Service in the Netherlands is allowed to manage it, but only through proper consultation with users.

The introduction of new forms of recreation New forms of recreation which are (also) aimed at experiencing nature were introduced in the National Forest Service’ s sites: mountain biking, rollerblading, GPS walks and bicycle tours. Sometimes these forms require the development of entirely new products. More often than in the past, recreational users desire an experience. The National Forest Service capitalises on this, by allowing visitors to experience the true character of a site: the nature, the landscape, the cultural history and the stories linked to a specific place. The organisation offers the opportunity to experience all this beauty in various attractive ways. Rambling across the flood plains, staying the night in reed weaver’ s cottages, walking along old smuggling routes, excursions to ‘ real peace and quiet’and all the while these experiences are genuine, not created. In this context, we can also mention the development of new products under the form of holiday packages. We are beginning to realise, that for many recreational visitors, going to the woods or a natural site is often part of a whole day out. In short, it is often part of a chain of events. This realisation led to the development of comprehensive regional products (for example natural hikes) in conjunction with local suppliers such as hotels, restaurants and catering industry, and tourist information offices. The development of tailor-made solutions Originally, the National Forest Service’ s range of recreational products was rather traditional, and narrow. In most places it consists of marked foot, cycle and equestrian paths, some oneday recreation sites and information panels. Although this was attuned to the general recreation pattern, the organisation is currently examining whether or not it is possible to better meet specific demands in some cases. Sometimes the nature of the (potential) demand can point the recreational supply in the right direction, for example on sites within the sphere of influence of cities. But an area can also profile itself, on the basis of specific site characteristics (exceptional nature or landscapes for example). A good example of this is opening large uninterrupted areas of nature development to ramblers, whereby the promotion specifically targets people who will enjoy this opportunity.

Required knowledge and skills

So far, managers could generally get a long way with professional knowledge and skills in the field of forestry and/or ecology. Such ‘ natural functions’often had priority and recreation was of less importance and therefore did not require further knowledge. However, we are beginning to realise that this approach no longer suffices. The importance of woodland and nature as green recreation areas is growing. More and more, the National Forest Service’ s range of recreational offer has to be attuned to the existing wishes with regard to experience and use, within the boundaries of sustainable management. New facilities for specific target groups are developed, while the opportunities the National Forest Service offers are promoted more than ever before. We need to gain more insight into the demands society makes towards us in this respect. This requires new knowledge and skills within the organisation. Knowledge is needed with regard to the scope and nature of the demand (including that of potential users such as ethnic minorities), the actual behaviour of recreational visitors, their

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satisfaction with regard to the options offered, trends, specific target groups, dose-effect relationships, etc. The National Forest Service will also need to develop a more proactive, and outgoing attitude. Besides professionalism in the field of recreation, more emphasis will be placed on skills such as a flexible attitude, entrepreneurship, creativity, taking the initiative, integrity and good, open communication. Realising this shift successfully requires the targeted development of staff skills and knowledge at all levels of the National Forest Service. For example, the field staff needs extra skills for supervising the public, while for the district head the accent should be on skills in the field of looking after people’ s interests. Priority is therefore given to the development of more expertise, support and attention with regard to recreation. Thinking about recreation has to become second nature to all Forestry Service staff. That is why, among other things, we are considering: - to gather more specialised knowledge and experience in the field of recreation. In other words, knowledge on recreation, marketing, communication, etc. This has to be developed at regional level in particular. - to improve the exchange of ideas and experiences within the National Forest Service for the benefit of vertical and horizontal knowledge exchange (for example, using the intranet). - To assign one (or more) innovation coordinators for the development and implementation of new recreational products. - To shift the available means (manpower and funds) to nature within the urban sphere of influence, mainly located in the west of the country (from ‘ quiet’to more heavily used areas) Naturally, these internally-oriented initiatives can also be translated to the outside world, in this case the educational institutes where many of our staff are trained. Here too, similar shifts in emphasis on skills and knowledge should be incorporated into the curriculum to better prepare future colleagues for their tasks. Purely because the society, in which urbanisation and nature keep meeting more often, demands that we do so.

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SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’ WORKSHOP B. Communication and Public Education (2) Forestry and Foresters in Public Opinion Georg FINDEIS, Bezirksforstinspektion, Austria [email protected]

Nearly 50 % of Austria is covered with forest, mostly owned by private persons. The percentage of forest and growing stock is still increasing. Timber production is economically important. That seems to be due to the highly qualified forest service and the strict current forest law, which has its roots in the 19th century. Nevertheless, new social demands to forestry have appeared, but that should not become a serious problem, because we can offer each Austrian half a hectare of well-managed forest! The problem is that it is becoming more and more the political conflict that Saetre (City of Trondheim) summarized at the 2nd Forum in Aarhus (1999): "We destroy their dreams when we cut the tree". To improve our communication with forest users, in Austria several research projects on the public opinion about forests forestry and foresters were carried out. At this moment, two opinion polls are available, dating from 1990 (Fessel & GFK-Institut) and 2002 (Integral) (See Table 1). In this paper, I will try to make a comparison in order to detect possible evolutions. As these two polls were originally not intended to be compared, just very few parts of these two polls are actually comparable. Table 1. Leisure activities in forests (based on Schmithüsen & Wild-Eck 1998, Fessel & GFK-Institut 1990 and Integral 2002) Date and source 1980 –1997 (Schmithüsen & Wild-Eck, 1998) 1990 (Fessel & GFK-Institut 1990) 2002 (Integral 2002)

Number of habitants who visited the forest at least once a month (percentage) 39 % (mean value calculated for the period 1980 –1997) 55 % 70 %

Table 2. Public opinion about the forest cover evolution in Austria (Fessel & GFK-Institut 1990 and Integral 2002) Date and source 1990 (Fessel & GFK-Institut 1990) 2002 (Integral 2002)

Public Opinion on the evolution of the forest cover (percentage) Increasing forest cover Decreasing forest cover 15 % 46 % 50 % 30 %

We can see that the number of people spending their leisure time in the forest has increased within the last ten years, comparable with the results in Switzerland, where the number of forests visits increased with 39 % (Schmithüsen & Wild-Eck, 1998). The increase is evident and corresponding with common impressions. As far as the development of the forest area and growing stock, we have been able to convince the public opinion. In 1990 just 15% of the population knows that the wood stock was increasing; nowadays already 50% know this. Probably some media attention has helped to achieve that. For example, the association of private forest owners (Hauptverband der Land- und Forstwirtschaftsbetriebe Österreichs) manufactured in 1998 a cube of exactly one cubic meter, representing exactly how much timber is growing in Austria’ s forests every second.

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Besides these gratifying results we have not yet succeeded in convincing people that it is necessary to cut a living tree to gain the raw material for timber. We had some success in convincing politicians that wood is a sustainable material. As an example here we finally show some ideas how you can use wood.

References Fessel & GFK-Institut, 1990. Einstellung und Wissensstand der Österreichischen Bevölkerung zum und über den Wald. Under the authority of the FPP - Kooperation Forst-Papier-Platte, Wien. Integral, 2002. Wald und Erholung. Under the authority of the Österreichische Bundesforste A.G., Wien. Schmithüsen & Wild-Eck, 1998. The Meaning of Forests to People in the Cities - Analysis of Selected Studies. Proceedings of the 1st EFUF Wuppertal (1998).

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Involving Farmers in the Creation of the Venice Forest Mariolina TONIOLO, Comune di Venezia, Italy [email protected]

Abstract

The city of Venice is creating a new 1200 ha large forest. One third will be the property of the city, while the rest is expected to be realised through partnerships with landowners. The city recently acquired 200 ha which are meant to become the trigger to convert the remaining properties from agricultural crops to forest. Incentives may come from: provision by the EU (within the Common Agricultural Policy), the Regional Government (under the Venice Protection Act), and the city planning ordinance. While two large landlords have enthusiastically joined the project, so far little support was gained by small farmers. Therefore, a communication campaign is presently being developed, involving the following steps: Understanding how the forest project is perceived by farmers, and why; Better knowledge of economic and social characteristics of the actual farms involved by the project; Direct talks with farmers in order to better explain the project’ s advantages. Concerning the first step, some mistakes were apparently made in the early stages of the project by assuming concern for the environment to necessarily be in conflict with efficient agriculture. To implement the second point, a GIS-supported database is presently under construction. Pilot interviews show that, with a few exceptions, most farms will actually profit from the afforestation project. Hurdles might come from cultural conditions (resistance to change by elderly people), to which specific answers are to be found. The consultation phase (point 3) is being dealt with through the farmers’associations and by direct dialogue with farmers.

Paper

The city council of Venice is creating a new 1.200 ha large forest. One third will be the property of the city, while the remainder will be owned by private cooperative landowners. Most citizens have been longing for this project since more than ten years. In fact, the city is not only made of the famous historic core located within a lagoon but also of a modern part built on the mainland. Almost two thirds of the city’ s population live on the mainland and would like this part of the city to be as attractive as the old one. A large forest is therefore a good idea, allowing for landscape restoration (there were woods there until World War I) and the purification of air, ground and water. Of course, it is easier to conceive such a project than to implement it. The city does not have the budget available to purchase so much land. Besides that, not all farmers like to give their land to the city. Therefore, the danger is that the project may appear both unfeasible and unfriendly to farmers. In fact, the programme’ s feasibility is linked to the farmers’willingness to participate voluntarily. This means planting the forest must be economically viable and the farmers must see it that way. Incentives to afforestation may come from several sources. Some provisions by the EU are explicitly targeted on planting new forests. Some farmers in the area took advantage of such provisions in the recent past. Unfortunately, starting in year 2001 the Regional Government, which is responsible for allocating European funds to agriculture, decided to support the creation of new forests only in the mountains, therefore not in Venice. On the other hand, the EU is soon going to decrease subsidizing the agricultural production, which will make it convenient for many farms to convert from crop production to the provision of services both to the environment and to the people (perspectives for tourism are obviously promising in the area). Another incentive to afforestation may come from the Venice Protection Act, as a means to

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purge the waters pouring into the lagoon. The streams in the area are all quite polluted and take their pollutants straight into the lagoon. The purification of lagoon water is the responsibility of the Regional Government who was given an important amount of money by the Italian State for this purpose. But until now, the Regional Government did not take a lot of action to use this budget. In recent years, the ability of trees to absorb nutrients from the ground along river banks has been proved and publicised by the authority who is responsible for water management in the area. Recently, the Regional Government has decided to finance water cleaning by trees. Land owners may now receive sound compensation for devoting their land to such projects. In addition to that, the city planning ordinance grants some building rights to landlords who agree to afforest there land. If more than one incentive is cumulated on the same project, the convenience to plant the forest instead of growing crops is certainly there. In fact, as soon as the planning ordinance was issued the owners of two large estates enthusiastically joined the project by planting 10 ha each. On the other hand, little support has come so far from small farmers. Therefore, a communication campaign is currently going on, involving the following steps: 1. understanding how the forest project is perceived by farmers, and why; 2. better knowledge of the conditions that make the planting of the forest economically sound, and how the characteristics of actual farms involved by the project can affect them; 3. direct conversations with farmers in order to better explain the project’ s advantages. Concerning the 1st topic., some mistakes were apparently made in the early stages of the project by assuming concern for the environment to be necessarily in conflict with efficient agriculture. Also, many farmers fear that afforestation will become compulsory. Therefore we shall use step 3 to correct some misunderstanding about the forest project and to stress it is just an additional opportunity, not meant to limit the farmers’freedom. A preliminary meeting was held under the auspices of the local farmers’union. At the end of the meeting more reciprocal trust was reached. With regard to the second point, a study was carried out by the University of Padua (prof. Maurizio Merlo, Department of Rural Economics), investigating the budget of a sample of farms in the area. The results show no advantage to plant the forest for some very specialized farms (e.g. vineyards based or dairy cattle based) nor for most small-size farms that are self-run. It is clear that the viability depends on the EU grants to stimulate crop production, a condition that will probably change in the future. The analysis leads to open conclusions. Farmers may find it more or less viable to move from crop production to the provision of environmental services according to external and internal conditions. External conditions involve the change in financial support by the EU and possible new provisions by other subjects. We already mentioned financial support by the Regional Government to tree planting within water purification projects, as well as building rights depending on forest planting. Internal conditions mean their own family or farm life cycle, e.g. the willingness of the children to continue the farm. So, more investigation is needed along with deeper dialogue with actual farmers in the area. A very important step toward the implementation of the forest was recently made. The city acquired 200 ha of agricultural land and is turning it into a forest open to public use. Besides its actual existence, we are sure this forest will become the trigger to convert the rest of the properties from crops to forest. The fact of living near a large public forest will certainly shift the farmers’convenience towards providing more people- and environment-oriented services.

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Managing the urban forest: better do nothing! Ronald BUITING, Forest Consultant, Buiting Bosontwikkeling, the Netherlands, [email protected] Abstract Actually, 4 consultancies and the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries are developping a communication campaign to promote the image of woodproduction in the Netherlands. To promote Dutch wood, there is e.g. a website developped (www.nederlandshoutdoetmee.nl) (wich can be freely translated as www.dutchwoodisalsogood.nl). Whitin this frame, the perceptions of forest users on wood harvesting was researched (as a zero measurement to record the actual perceptions). The results of these research will be presented during the workshop. The main conclusion is that forest users do not want the foresters to cut trees in frequently visited forests. ” The forests are already beautiful enough –there is no need for harvesting!”

Paper

On the 27th of November 2002, a nationwide campaign started, with the slogan ‘ Dutch wood is in’(‘ Nederlands hout doet mee’ ). This campaign aims to improve the image of Dutch wood harvesting by stimulating dialogue and cooperation between owners (forest owners and managers), processors (developers, timber merchants and timber processors) and users (visitors for leisure and recreation). The project is executed under the authority of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food quality and is carried out by three consultancies and a communications agency. The project has been opened with a meeting attended by owners and processors as well as users. They discussed Dutch forests, wood and wood harvesting. Some of the statements of the owners of woods are outlined below:  ‘ There is much resistance from visitors and conservationists regarding cutting trees from the woods.’  ‘ The price of timber is too low to be able to harvest profitably.’  ‘ Harvesting rules concerning the breeding season, the disturbing of wildlife, etc make it increasingly difficult to work in the woods.’ Users struck the following note:  ‘ The woods are beautiful as they are, why fiddle with them?’  ‘ Timber should be produced at foreign plants, not in beautiful Dutch woods’ The reactions above reveal the existence of many uncertainties, prejudices and misconceptions about the Dutch woods by forest owners, managers, processors and experiencers. What strikes the most is the inadequate communication between the parties involved, which keeps alive misconceptions and lack of understanding. In the course of the project, dialogues between the three target groups have also been the central point. This knowledge has been further distributed amongst processors, owners and experiencers through the Internet (www.nederlandshoutdoetmee.nl), publications and articles in regional daily and weekly papers. ‘ Dutch wood is in’has not been concluded yet, but much has already been achieved. The conclusions that may be drawn from this campaign are also important for the actual Dutch forestry education. It is clear that not only expert knowledge is demanded of managers. Communicative skills appear to play an increasingly important role and it remains to be seen whether the present forestry education seizes on this sufficiently.

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In our opinion a shift should take place within the curriculum, from a supply of professional subjects to subjects that focus to a larger extent on communication, presentation and education. We therefore propose to develop the curriculum as follows. Present curriculum, stating the subjects with permanent importance followed by the subjects that need to be emphasised less: Important subjects:   Pro Silva forestry   flora/fauna/soil science   forest inventory   nature conservation   water management Less important subjects:   forest exploitation   forest techniques   wood science   practical forest techniques Subjects that should be paid more attention to in the new curriculum: Important:   presentation and interview techniques   workshop techniques   inquiry techniques   popular writing   media science   art science A curriculum of this composition will lead to graduated urban foresters who are better prepared and have more baggage at the start of their careers. To conclude, the necessary shifts within the curriculum will have far-reaching consequences for the teaching institutes themselves, for example:   new subjects will be at the expense of existing subjects   the education structure will change   teachers will need retraining   new teachers with ‘ new’skills will have to be taken on   institutes can create a broader profile for themselves at the ‘ green communications market’and that way attract other students as well This shift is obviously imperative, because it is determined by the market. Since it will also have to take place soon, one thing is certain: much work is yet to be done.

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Urban Foresters – Winning Hearts and Minds Nerys JONES, National Urban Forestry Unit, United Kingdom [email protected]

Abstract Urban foresters work in an environment where they need to engage with a wide variety of organisations and individuals: professionals, politicians and members of the public. Most people engage more readily with environmental issues where the benefits are very local and very personal. Participation works best at neighbourhood level, where personal involvement is easy and where physical improvement in the environment is immediately apparent. The longer term benefits of the urban forest are many and varied, but the ones with greatest public appeal tend to be those which bring personal rewards. This is why the link to healthy living has proved to be such a powerfully persuasive marketing tool and why enhanced property values give trees in towns great popular appeal. For urban foresters, public involvement in local greenspace also holds the key to positive engagement with the wider professional community. Trees and woods in towns provide them with a useful tool for engaging people with more substantial sustainable development issues such as strategic flood protection, environmental education, public health and new patterns of economic regeneration.

Introduction

Urban foresters work in a complex environment, where they need to engage with a wide variety of organisations and individuals: professionals, politicians and members of the public. This is in marked contrast to colleagues who work in the rural countryside, where circumstances are relatively much simpler.

Pictures 1 & 2. People know that close contact with nature makes us feel good

Benefits of the Urban Forest Individuals engage most readily with their environment at a neighbourhood level, where the issues are very local and also very personal. Examples of this, related to the urban forest, include:

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  contact with nature, and the pleasure of such things as garden birds and butterflies;   recreation and play, and the enjoyment of relaxing amongst trees and woodland;   property value enhancement, and the willingness to pay a premium for a home in a treelined street or close to a park;   personal health and well being, and the reinvigorating experience of gentle exercise in wooded surroundings;   habitat protection, where new development threatens familiar greenspace and local people strive to save it. The benefits of the urban forest are many and varied, but the ones with most immediate public appeal tend to be those which bring personal rewards and which appeal to the heart. The urban forest also contributes to the quality of life in ways which are perhaps less immediately obvious, but are highly relevant, nevertheless. These issues are more likely to appeal to the minds of fellow professionals and they include: Public health The urban forest filters pollution and improves air quality, whilst access to greenspace is known to relieve stress and also to encourage healthy exercise. The urban forest has an important contribution to make to preventative health care programmes. Energy conservation The shelter and shade from woodland in the built environment reduces seasonal heating and cooling costs significantly. This is economically important, but the resulting reduction in fossil fuel consumption also has wider implications for global climate change. Regional image Green surroundings help to make urban areas more attractive, and this in turn boosts tourism and stimulates economic regeneration. Towns and cities are increasingly citing their greenspace as a major part of their commercial appeal. Flood protection Climate change is leading to more extreme weather patterns, one feature of which seems to be an increased risk of storm water flooding. In towns this is exaggerated even further by the growing extent of impervious paved surfaces. The urban forest canopy slows the rate at which the rainfall reaches the ground and this, together with the absorbency of the woodland floor, helps to moderate rainwater run-off and reduce the risk of flooding. Environmental education Learning about natural systems is made easier when the familiar local landscape of parks, gardens and school grounds can be used for teaching. This is an increasingly important role for the urban forest. Biodiversity Biodiversity is a key element of the government’ s sustainability agenda and the rich diversity of wildlife habitats which make up the urban forest are now being recognised as highly productive. The multi-layered canopy and the linked continuity of their greenspace networks make urban areas extremely valuable for wildlife.

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Social inclusion Social inclusion is important if towns and cities are to become more liveable. Practical involvement in the planning, planting and aftercare for the urban forest is a well proven way of involving local people in environmental enhancement.

Continuing support for Urban Forestry To maximise political support for trees and woods in towns, the urban forester needs to capitalise on the natural enthusiasm which most people have for their local greenspace. In addition, there is great merit in working with fellow professionals in other fields, to strengthen their appreciation of the wider role that the urban forest plays in contributing to a range of important social, environmental and economic issues. If the relevance of the urban forest to such significant areas of popular concern as public health and economic regeneration can be reinforced with sound research and measurable evidence, then the value of the urban forest will be increasingly championed by opinion formers with greater influence than the urban forestry professionals. Clearly it is important for urban foresters to continue developing their skills and expertise in the practice of growing and managing trees and woods in towns. However, if green spaces are to play a central role in sustainable development, then they also need to win the hearts and minds of politicians, fellow professionals and the general public.

Pictures 3 & 4. Greenspace is functional: for instance, it improves the quality of the environment by reducing flood risk and filtering air pollution

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SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban foresters’

WORKSHOP C. Education of foresters (1) What urban foresters need to know, the curriculum development John RAGGERS, Larenstein University of Professional Education, the Netherlands, [email protected] Abstract Urbanisation has had a major impact on forests and other green areas in the Netherlands. In a densely populated country such as the Netherlands, land is scarce. Only 10% of the land area is covered with forests. A transition has taken place from a production-driven to a multifunctional approach. About 80% of Dutch forests are used for multifunctional purposes. The changes in forest management have had a major impact on forestry education. Traditional forestry education focussed on the production function of the forest. Nowadays the focus is more on nature management and recreation. The job profiles of graduates have changed and so other competences are needed. A competence is defined as a cluster of related knowledge, skills and attitudes to fulfil a task. The forestry business is becoming increasingly socially oriented and foresters should have the competence to communicate with different interest groups. Larenstein has used this competence approach to review its study programme. Six years ago the forestry and nature management department at Larenstein started with a problem oriented approach towards education. The study consists of a mixture of group work and individual study. One of the major advantages of this approach is that students are trained to co-operate and have good communication skills. This is very important for foresters nowadays. With growing urbanisation, we are facing new challenges. During this forum we would like to find out what competences are necessary for graduates to fulfil their tasks in urban forestry.

Forestry in the Netherlands Urbanisation has had a major impact on forests and other green areas in The Netherlands. In a densely populated country such as the Netherlands, land is scarce. Only 10% of the land area is covered with forests. There are a lot of claims on these forests. Therefore about 80% of Dutch forests are multifunctionally used. Nearly all forest in the Netherlands is influenced by urbanisation. The separate functions of recreation, nature and production cannot be entirely utilised in a multifunctional forest. By mains of integrated forest management we try to combine several functions in the same forest. In forest management a transition has taken place from a production driven to a multifunctional (integrated) approach. The changes in forest management have had a major impact on forestry education. In forestry education we also pay attention to this integrated approach. Traditional forestry education focused on the production function of the forest. Harvesting, exploitation and regeneration techniques were important issues. Nowadays we focus more on nature management and recreation function. Students need to have a much broader view of forest management. The student still needs to know the “ old”skills for example: how to produce a forest management plan, but a lot of extra new skills are needed. This led to conflicts in teaching methods, because paying attention to something new means that less attention can be paid to something existing. It is always hard to let go of something familiar. Not only teachers but also a small part of the occupational practice felt this problem.

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Forestry education at Larenstein The job profiles of graduates have changed and so other competences are needed. A competence is defined as a cluster of related knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to fulfil a task. The aim of an educational programme is to train students/employees in order to develop sufficient knowledge, skills and the right attitude to be able to be successful in their job. To be sure that the programme is successful it is important to identify which needs exist and which atittude is expected. Therefore, it is important to make job profiles. These job profiles can be translated in terms of related job competences needed. Larenstein University of Professional Education has used this competence approach to review its study programme. Six years ago the Forestry and Nature Management Department of Larenstein started problem based learning. In this new approach students are working in groups of 5 on real life problems in assignments similar to those graduates are facing in their occupational practice. These assignments have been carefully chosen to give a clear view of the career prospects students have. The education is a mixture of individual knowledge and group assignments. The theory needed is delivered just in time. Half the education time is spent on retrieving individual knowledge. The other 50% is spent on project work. Students must be able to integrate knowledge and skills of different disciplines in the projects. One of the major advantages of this approach is that students are trained to cooperate and have good communication and information skills. This is very important for foresters nowadays.

What urban foresters need to know With growing urbanisation, we face a number of new challenges. One of them is to identify the skills that an urban forester needs to have. I will make an attempt here to identify some of the needs in terms of education and the development of specific skills for urban forestry. Ecology Before discussing these needs, I want to make clear that the natural science based knowledge is still very important. Students should have a good understanding of forest ecosystems.This should, in my opinion, be the foundation in forestry education. If you do not have a good understanding of the ecosystem, it is impossible to adjust this ecosystem so that it fulfils the demands of society. Communication There is a growing public involvement in forestry. People are more critical about forest management plans. The forestry business is becoming increasingly socially oriented and students should have the skills to communicate with interest groups (information skills). However, communication does not only mean that you are able to give information to the public about your plans, you should also be able to get preside over information meetings and negotiate in conflicts between different interest groups. Foresters are becoming managers more and more. They should have executive abilities and must be able to delegate tasks to other persons and supervise the work that needs to be done. Marketing In The Netherlands, at this moment, prices of wood are low and production costs are high, so there is a decreasing income from timber sales. There is also a growing protest against logging activities in the forest. A lot of effort (and money) have to be made to give information to the public about ones plans. So foresters are more and more dependent on other sources of income. Nature management and recreation is subsidised, but the amount of money is not enough to

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manage forests properly. Foresters should look for other opportunities to market their forests. Forest and trees are very important in the urban surrounding and there are a lot of people who benefit from them. It is now time to market all these benefits/services the urban forest fulfils. This also means, and that is the last point I want to make, that the urban forester should be more active in policy-making. They should not wait until politicians have made policies for them.

Conclusion: forestry education in an urbanised setting

Forestry education faces the challenge to translate the skills mentioned above, and a lot of skills not mentioned, to its educational programme. Problem oriented education maybe a good educational method for students to acquire the skills needed. At Larenstein we have made a step forward in forestry education in an urbanised setting. We have to continue to find out what skills are necessary for graduates to fulfil their tasks in urban forestry and how this can be translated into the study programme. This means that we have to remain in close contact with the occupational practice.

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Urban Forestry in Indonesia a Matter of Learning by Doing Meilina WIJAYANTI, Bogor Agricultural University, Faculty of Forestry, Indonesia, [email protected] Keywords : Indonesia, urban forestry, urbanization, pollution, green spaces, population

Abstract Urban forests are increasingly being considered as important within the urban context. They are recognized as major contributors to the quality of life. At present, urban forestry plays an important role in Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is experiencing rapid urbanization and pollution especially in the city centres. Finding the right balance between built-up areas and green spaces in order to maintain the environmental quality is required. The need for urban forestry and integrated city planning is increasing in line with the environmental deterioration caused by pollution, urbanization, industrialization and rapid population. This paper presents the current status, management and practices of urban forestry in Indonesia. Some general characteristics of and challenges for urban green space management in several cities in Indonesia are described. Specifically, it will discuss urban forestry as matter of learning by doing to promote development and education of urban foresters in Indonesia as a necessary action.

Introduction

Urbanization is a global phenomenon and this is also a process that can not be avoided by Indonesia. The rate of urban population growth in Indonesia is about 5 % per annum (Yuliarsana, 2002). The current urban population is about 40 % of the total population of Indonesia. Yet urbanization has caused some serious environmental problems. In addition to the city administrators being incapable of counterbalancing growth with adequate service provision, the urbanization flow brought also poverty in the villages. The rapid population growth, urbanization and also industrialization accelerated the loss of urban green spaces in Indonesia. Green areas were converted into other land uses, which will cause more urban environmental problems: deterioration of air quality, higher temperature, increased noise level, greater psychological stress and a decreased sense of community (Palijon, 2002). Thus, finding the right balance between built up areas and urban green spaces is essential to maintain the urban environmental quality.

Status of urban forestry in Indonesia

Urban forestry in Indonesia is not a new phenomenon since the people have well recognized urban greening and tree plantation. As Kuchelmeister (1998) pointed out, the urban forest is one of the resources of an urban area; it is part of the urban infrastructure and is determining the quality of living of its residents. The lack of technology transfer, research and information exchange are some of the obstacles of urban forestry development though. The regional development of urban forestry in Indonesia was stimulated by the law. Among them, the most significant were Law No. 22/1999 on Regional Governments and Law No. 25/2000 on the National Development Programme. These two laws changed the governmental system from a centralized government to a decentralized system (Sasongko, 2003; MONEV, 2002). These new laws have given the regions autonomy. Applied to urban forestry, it is expected that the regional governments will regulate further the urban forestry development in accordance with regional needs and conditions. Besides the laws mentioned earlier, there is specific regulation for urban forestry and green space development, Government Decree No.

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63/2002 on Urban Forestry and Decree of Minister of National Affairs No. 14/1988 on Green Open Spaces. Until this moment, there is paucity of information about the situation of urban forest resources in Indonesia. While some cities have increased their urban forest cover, other cities have failed. Though, the Ministry of Environment had done an important effort to recapitulate the information about green spaces in Indonesian cities and municipalities through the Bangun Praja Programme.

Current management of urban forestry in Indonesia Trees have probably been a part of cities since their first establishment (Miller, 1988). Urban trees, forests, and associated vegetation have numerous uses and functions in the urban environment. These uses range from the obvious to the obscure, and offer a range of opportunities for the improvement of urban living conditions. a. Policy and institutional framework for management of urban forestry in Indonesia Policy making on urban forest and public green space management is carried out by the Indonesian government through specified regulation. The Regional Government Law attempted to bring the government closer to the communities through autonomy at local, district and municipal levels. This law stimulates local governments to develop specific urban forestry policy and urban forest management guidelines for their region, within the framework of the national guidelines in managing and developing urban forestry. b. Social and cultural aspects of urban forestry in Indonesia Cultural norms and religious values undoubtedly influenced the cultivation and management of urban trees in different regions. In Indonesia, the Buddhism and Hinduism cultural heritages strongly influenced tree plantation. For example, Ficus religiosa, the tree species under which Lord Buddha gained enlightenment, is especially planted around the Buddhist temples. c. Ecological aspects of urban forestry Urban forest ecosystem assists in cleansing pollutants from the atmosphere. To understand how vegetation can be used to reduce air pollution it is necessary to discuss the major components of air pollution, how individual plants react with these components, how forest ecosystem react with urban air masses, and which tree species are best adapted to polluted air masses (Miller, 1988). Carter (1993) comments that apart from adding variety and richness to urban landscapes with their different foliage and blossoms, heights, colours and shapes, trees can enhance the living environment by reducing glare and reflection. They can also add to the coherence of an urban landscape, complementing architectural features. d. Technical aspects of urban forestry development At this moment, technical information on urban forest management in Indonesia is not sufficiently available. This is also triggered by the scarcity of trained professionals and other stakeholders in urban forestry, a distinct lack of regional exchange of information and little technology development. Therefore, some research activities have been done by several universities in Indonesia. Furthermore, trainings and workshop were carried out at various levels to provide adequate information by educating urban foresters and related stakeholders in Indonesia.

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Challenges facing urban forest management, development and education in Indonesia

Indonesia has not yet developed well-planned urban forestry to offer a high quality of life in urban environments. The challenge is to make urban forest and green spaces compatible and functional under the pressure of urban growth and urban sprawl, realizing that in many Indonesian cities land for tree cultivation is very limited. Other environmental problems should also be considered as a serious threat to the urban ecosystem balance. One should increase people’ s awareness to the importance of urban forest and green space development. Through learning by doing process the government, NGOs, private sectors, academic institution and local groups of residents must face the challenges. Urban forests provide many educational opportunities. Though, the urban residents have not taken these opportunities, as it should have been. Both formal and informal education systems are very important to disseminate the benefits and opportunities of urban forests through knowledge exchange and technology transfer to respond the existing needs and requirements.

Potential benefits and threats a. Potential benefits The urban forest is important to the city dwellers in many ways. Its trees provide shade, beauty, and other benefits (Grey & Deneke, 1986). Miller (1988) described beyond those benefits a number of engineering functions urban vegetation can perform. Trees and forests modify urban microclimates, which in turn affects the human comfort. Vegetation reduces certain air pollutants, but will sometimes sustain damage by these pollutants. Construction and overuse exposes urban soils to wind and water erosion. The appropriate vegetation type, along with control of pedestrian traffic patterns, can substantially reduce erosion problems. Urban greenbelts and forests also cleanse wastewater from municipalities and industries. Particularly conservation groups value the diversity of habitats provided by urban forests. The extent to which this is viewed as important varies greatly in different cultures and in the different groups. b. Potential threats The most important threat for urban forestry in Indonesia is the lack of information about the role and importance of urban forestry. Therefore, people are not aware the importance of urban forests and do not appreciate them. Moreover, there is a lack of sufficient technical, material and financial resources for to the development of urban forestry. The autonomous local governments are responsible for financing urban forest development. But they fear hazards by urban forests, directly through falling branches or falling trees or indirectly, caused by poorly planted trees or inappropriate tree species. Recommendations A systematized institutional framework at the national, provincial and local level should be set up and strengthened by establishing a better coordination in managing urban forest and green spaces. To achieve the best results in urban forestry development, also links with other stakeholders should be established: private sectors, academic institutions, NGOs, and local groups of residents. A continuous effort to support and strengthen local initiatives in design, conservation and management of urban forests should be enhanced through interactive participation of all the stakeholders involved. Guidelines and data on good urban forestry practices should be available and should be disseminated to local governments, stakeholders and also professional organisations.

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References Carter, E.J., 1993. The Potential of Urban Forestry in Developing Countries: A Concept Paper, FAO, Rome. Grey, S.W. & F.J. Deneke, 1986. Urban Forestry. Second Edition. John Wiley and Sons, New York. Konijnendijk, C.C., 1999. Urban Forestry in Europe: A Comparative Study of Concepts, Policies and Planning for Forest Conservation, Management and Development in and around Major European Cities. Academic dissertation, Faculty of Forestry, University of Joensuu, Finland. Kuchelmeister, G., 1998. Urban Forestry in the Asia Pacific Region: Status and Prospects. AsiaPacific Forestry Outlook Study Working Paper Series. Working Paper No: APFSOS/WP/44. Forestry Policy and Planning Division, Rome. Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok. Miller, R.W., 1988. Urban Forestry: Planning and Managing Urban Greenspaces. Prentice Hall, New Jersey. MONEV (Ministry of Environment), 2002. Towards Good Environmental Governance. Jakarta. Palijon, A.M., 2002. Urban Forestry in Asia: State of the Art. Institute of Renewable Natural Resources, College of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of the Philippines Los Banos. Paper (Unpublished). Sasongko, H., 2003. Pedoman Draft Ruang Terbuka Hijau Di Wilayah Perkotaan dalam Era Otonomi Daerah (Guideline Draft of Green Spaces in Urban Areas in Regional Autonomy Era). Workshop Paper (In Indonesian). Director of Urban Affairs, Ministry of National Affairs, Jakarta. Van Herzele, A. and Denutte, T., 2002. Public Involvement, NeighbourWoods State of the Art Report. VUB, Brussels. Yuliarsana, I.Y., 2002. Regulasi Pembangunan Hutan Kota (Regulation on Urban Forestry Development). Workshop Paper (In Indonesian). Ministry of Forestry, The Republic of Indonesia, Yogyakarta.

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Organisation, Directives and challenges of Urban Forestry education at Italian Universities Fabio SALBITANO, University of Florence & Giovanni SANESI, University of Bari, Italy [email protected]

The first course Urban forestry in Italy was offered in 1993 at the University of Florence in the frame of the degree of Forestry. After ten years, following a complete re-organisation of the University degrees all over the country, new opportunities and challenges are characterising the education in Urban Forestry in Italy. At first, the authors will re-trace a brief summary of the history of urban forestry research and education in Italy and highlight the new organisation of the university degrees. Later on, they focus on the present offer of urban forestry and urban greening at different levels, from the First level degrees (three years course) to the Second level (First level plus two years) up to MSc and PhD levels. The continuity and differences with the past experiences are outlined. On the basis of the increasing demands of professionals and technicians in the sectors of urban forestry and urban greening, and referring to recent experiences of communicative flow of knowledge and culture within a range of urban forestry actors, the authors outline the future perspectives and needs of education in the mentioned disciplines, and furthermore try to emphasize the need of integration and synergies with comparative international experiences as a challenge to create new cultural and employment opportunities.

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SESSION 2 ‘ Educating urban Foresters’ WORKSHOP D. Education of Foresters (2) Non Vocational Qualifications (NVQ) A lost opportunity Graham HUNT, Forest of Mercia Community Forest, England [email protected]

Abstract

This paper is based on the experience of the Forest of Mercia Project in delivering nonvocational training The NVQ system has been developing in the UK over the last ten years providing an assessment based means of skills enhancement. At the present time there are four levels of NVQ relating to forestry ranging from site based operations to forward planning, budgetary control and human resource management. It was introduced in an effort to stimulate site based skills development which would significantly reduce the amount of time employees would need to be away from the work place. Unfortunately the process had been seen by many as a cumbersome and bureaucratic one. NVQ’ s have also been slow to respond to the changing context within which forestry now operates in the UK. . It has proved very difficult to address the new skills that foresters need in relation to the increasing role that forestry plays in the environmental and social agendas of local communities. The experience of the Forest of Mercia has been mirrored by a study undertaken by the Forestry Contractors Association. In conclusion the potential of NVQs to provide a flexible and responsive structure for enhancing the skills of foresters has not been realised. A too heavy reliance on portfolio evidence has prevented the proactive nature of NVQs from being developed to meet new training needs. Consequently there remains a gap in the provision of continual professional education for urban and community foresters.

Paper

Since the early 1960s, the role of the forester has been changing. The combined effect of greater car ownership and more leisure hours available to workers and their families has lead to a much greater use of the nations woodlands for recreational purposes. The rate of this change, however, has within the UK, accelerated greatly within the last 20 years. During this period there has been much greater recognition of the importance of trees to the appearance of towns and cities and an understanding of the wider benefit that trees and forests can deliver to local communities. To fulfil a continually evolving expectation, in respect of the trees and forests, foresters have had to develop a wider range of skills that require knowledge far beyond traditional silvicultural practices. This paper focuses on the important role that continued professional development could play in assisting foresters to adapt to the ever-changing environmental and economic context within which they are now working. It will specifically explore the potential of non-vocational qualifications (NVQ’ s) to contribute to this process which, to date, has unfortunately been a story of lost opportunities. It will highlight the failure of NVQ’ s to contribute to a broad base continuous development programme, which is often contrary to the story for other industries. Thought will be given for the reasons for this apparent lack of success and to possible improvements that would enable the NVQ process to be more responsive to present day and future pressures.

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As an industry, forestry enjoyed a relatively stable environment well into the early 1960s. The inter-war period, following the setting up of the Forestry Commission in 1919, was very much focussed on timber production. The Forestry Commissions primary objective was to create a strategic reserve of timber. This objective applied to both its own management of state forests and the support and regulation it provided for private woodland owners. Following the war, a secondary objective of employment creation in rural areas was added to compensate for the significant changes in employment that were occurring as a result of changes in farming practice. It was, however, not until the affluent sixties, that the term multi-purpose forests came into play, in response to a need to manage woodlands for recreational and conservation regions as well as timber production. It was during this period that the high level use of state forests, by the public, began as a result of increased car ownership and more leisure time. In these state managed forests, foresters were, for the first time having to deal with the public on mass. This demanded new skills in communication and interpretation. In 1987, a further and significant policy change occurred. In a publication produced by the Countryside Commission, entitled ‘ Forests in the Countryside’ , the idea of both the National Forests and Community Forests was first mooted. It was the Forests for the Community Programme that has probably had the biggest impact on the way that people relate to forestry. The creation of Community Forests on the edge of major towns and cities in England was typified by bringing the trees down from the hills to peoples doorsteps. Whilst a simple concept, that of delivering multi-purpose forests in areas where people lived to provide a local resource that could be used on a daily basis, the implications for foresters have been fundamental. Whilst the Community Forest Programme was linking the countryside to towns and cities, a parallel process was going on within urban areas. The 80s saw a period of rapid development of urban forestry thinking. Heavily influenced by experiences from American cities, UK urban foresters like Roy Stirrat and Nigel Sergeant (Motherwell Tree Zone) undertook early pioneer work to make planners, foresters, politicians and the general public aware of the benefits of trees in urban settings. This advocacy has been continued into the present day by the National Urban Forestry Unit, which has ensured that urban forestry remains a key policy initiative in our towns and cities. To deliver forestry schemes in urban areas, which are designed to meet a wide range of objectives, has required the forester to acquire new skills. At the heart of the forestry training will always remain sound silvicultural practice. However, the list of new skills that the forester now needs is quite extensive. The key features are the ability of interact with other professions, communicate with the general public, respond to the technical challenges of planting on urban sites and to develop skills in resource gathering to finance significantly more complex schemes. The present day forester has to understand a wide range of issues involving health, social inclusion, economic regeneration, biodiversity, sustainability and tourism. There are now few foresters, apart from those who are working in the remoter areas of the UK who will not have to face some of these issues in the course of their daily work. Academic based training, such as degrees or higher national diplomas in forestry will, in the main, provide the core knowledge of the forester. Many courses are now containing elements or modules of their courses relating to urban and community forestry. This knowledge base is often refreshed at attendance at the numerous CPD events that are organised by organisations, such as the Institute of Chartered Foresters and Universities and Colleges. There is within the industry, a genuine commitment to continued professional development. These education and training measures, however, are heavily geared towards knowledge rather than skill or competence. A successful practitioner will require both elements. It was to ensure a more balanced approach to staff development that the National Vocational Qualifications system was introduced in England and Wales in the late 1980s. NVQ’ s offered existing practitioners opportunity to supplement their knowledge with work-based learning, which helped them to respond to new skill needs that were being demanded by the development of urban and

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community forestry. In reality, there is little prospect of the majority of foresters in employment returning to College or University for any extensive period to develop new skills. It is therefore very difficult for them to respond to changes in practice, particularly in the areas of urban community forestry, which are very dynamic and still evolving. The Government was very supportive of the NVQ approach and saw it as an important compliment to academic study, providing genuine opportunities for learning outside of formal education and training. The Governments initial intention was to abolish all other forms of vocational training and focus attention solely on NVQ’ s. It envisaged widespread work-based assessment, which would not take foresters away from the work place, but allow them to develop their skills in a relevant environment. NVQ’ s have generally been well received by employers. In May 1994, the White Paper on competitiveness, ‘ Helping business to win’ , acknowledged to importance of NVQ’ s to business and this view was subsequently endorsed by the Beaumont Review of 1996. Unfortunately, this general experience of NVQ’ s has not been good in the forestry industry. There has been very little take up of NVQ’ s within the industry, at any level. At the present time there are four levels of NVQ, which equate to GCSEs up to Higher National Diplomas and above. There are two possible reasons for this low take-up. Firstly, the syllabus followed by forestry NVQ’ s tends to be very traditional and is heavily influenced by past land management practices. Very little provision is made within the existing syllabus to reflect the wide range of skills that a forester needs today. For example, even at the very beginnings of a forester’ s career, they are more than likely to come into contact with local people. Certainly in urban areas, this is extremely likely and it must be recognised that forestry is not always seen as a positive action. Many urban people do not understand the forestry cycle and perceive any felling work as irreparable damage to their woodlands. It is essential therefore that foresters working at the interface with the general public, have the knowledge and skills to communicate reasons for forestry work and the benefits that will result. Within the NVQ system, it is only at Level IV that this skill is only really included in the syllabus. It is also worth noting that even then, the module relating to this issue, is heavily focussed on providing site interpretations rather than participating in community consultations. Certainly up until Level III, the emphasis is very much on the needs of production forestry and associated product production. There is, unfortunately, very little scope for the forester to use the NVQ process to develop their skills in line with the demands placed upon them by the emergence of urban and community forestry. A recent review of the Forestry NVQ has not helped matters. It has recently been amalgamated with other land management practices, such as horticulture and amenity tree planting, further diluting the skills base. If anything, there is now less opportunity than before to equip the forester, through the NVQ process, with the wide range of skills that are needed to deliver multi-purpose schemes that are the hallmark of urban and community forestry. The second problem stems from the way in which NVQ’ s are now delivered. Originally it was intended that the system would be based on entirely work-based assessments. This approach worked very well for industries for large concentrated work forces. For example, in the metal working industry it has been possible to take entire workshops, involving hundreds of people, through the process. This is clearly a very cost-effective way of delivering training. It has proved much more costly to deliver NVQ’ s in this way for industries such as forestry, which have relatively low numbers of workers who do not generally work in concentrated numbers. As the NVQ process became more and more costly to deliver, the emphasis has changed form site based assessment to the production of portfolios of evidence. This evidence requires both internal and external verification prior to its approval by the assessor. The burden of work, therefore, shifted significantly from the assessor to the employees and their managers. The Forest of Mercia Project, one of the forests within the National Programme of Community Forests in England, currently provides Forestry Training for unemployed people up to NVQ Level II. Due to the need to provide portfolio-based evidence, the Project has had to recruit additional

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staff to assist participants with the task of putting together a portfolio. There is also a further consideration, which is specific to the type of training provided by the Forest of Mercia Project, which is that many of the participants will have learning difficulties and therefore issues of numeracy and literacy will have to be addressed before the portfolio can be completed. Clearly this is not an issue for qualified foresters but certainly at the industrial end of the profession it is a barrier to skills development. It must be recognised that pay within the industry is not relatively high in relation to other industrial jobs, which will have an impact on the educational background of those forestry workers dealing with straightforward land managing activities, such as planting and felling. However, as observed in the previous paragraph, these forestry workers will also have to deal with the public and need to be equipped with the proper skills to enable them to successfully undertake the task of dealing with the public. Realistically, it will not always be the case that a supervisor will be immediately to hand to deal with public enquiries. The issue of portfolios does not solely apply to Levels I and II; it is very much an issue that affects all NVQ’ s. The author is in the process of completing a Level IV NVQ and the amount of evidence that needs to be gathered for this level is extensive. Sixteen modules have to be completed and on average each module will contain between thirty and fifty separate pieces of evidence. This evidence consists of the participant’ s own work, as well as witness statements from colleagues and managers. It is extremely time consuming to put together and has an equal implication in respect of time for verification and assessment. The verification process can be expensive, for example the cost of verification of the first three modules was £1000. This would suggest that the total cost of a full Level IV would be in excess of £5000. This is clearly not a cost effective way to develop employee’ s skills and it is not surprising, therefore, to learn that the author is the only person in England who has embarked on a Level IV NVQ, and that, following the recent review of Forestry NVQ's the Level IV will be phased out in 1996. In addition to the financial cost of NVQ’ s, it must also be recognised that many managers would prefer to send an employee off site to be trained to avoid the time cost of themselves needing to contribute to the NVQ process. This view is contrary to one of the original objectives of NVQ’ s, which was to provide site-based training opportunities to avoid the need for employees to attend off site training. There are, however, some areas of progress. With regard to the new requirements for machine operations certification, there has developed a very close relationship between formal training to acquire knowledge and the NVQ process to demonstrate competence. This has proved to be a very good example of where a portfolio can be constructed across a range of activities undertaken on site. Similarly, it is also encouraging to see the UK Government link the new modern apprenticeship scheme to the NVQ process. It is extremely important, however, that the case is made for urban community forestry to influence the syllabuses that are offered. At the moment, the flexible nature of NVQ’ s is not being fully exploited. The urban forester now needs a broad understanding of other professions and disciplines. The NVQ process is modular, which means there should be the opportunity to draw from other disciplines. Over 150 occupations are now covered by 762 NVQ’ s. There is no reason why modules from different NVQ’ s could not be combined to create skills base that is truly reflective of the current needs of the urban and community forester. In conclusion, it is unfortunate that the potential of NVQ’ s to provide a flexible and responsive structure for enhancing the skills of foresters has not yet been realised. A too heavy reliance on portfolio evidence has prevented the pro-active nature of NVQ’ s from being developed to meet new training needs. Similarly, syllabuses offered under NVQ’ s are not being modernised and do not reflect the full extent of the skills needed by today’ s forester. Consequently there remains a gap in the provision of continued professional education for urban and community foresters.

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‘ Which tree? Where? – A web based guide for urban forestry students Mary FORREST and Tom MOORE, Department of Crop Science, Horticulture and Forestry, University College Dublin, Ireland [email protected]

Abstract

An ability to design and manage tree planting schemes in urban situations and an aptitude for tree identification, are among the skills required by urban foresters. In education, various teaching methodologies are used, lectures, precedent studies, tree identification classes in a laboratory or in the field or viewing tree related videos. With the development of the Internet there are new opportunities for self-paced, interactive education, distance and continuing education. Most urban forestry or tree related books are text based, where as a web based resource is principally image based, with a minimum of supporting text. The software packages required for web design include an HTML editor, image editing tool, web browser and file transfer protocol. Following an examination of existing sites, the web site was designed with a home page and hyperlinks to web pages concerning design with trees, tree management and tree identification. Images of trees in urban areas, scanned from slides in the Departmental collection and photographed with a digital camera, were saved as jpegs edited and uploaded to the web site. Background colour and tables were incorporated as a framework for images and text. At present the web site contains 42 web pages with 280 images and text amounting to 22 megabytes. The student feedback has been positive; they find the pages easy to navigate and have described it as excellent and very useful in revision for examinations. Keywords: Urban Forestry, Web based learning, arboriculture.

Paper An ability to design and manage tree-planting schemes in urban settings and an aptitude for tree identification, are among the competencies required by urban foresters. To successfully develop these, various teaching strategies can be used, such as illustrated lectures; precedent studies in the field or in the literature; tree identification classes in a laboratory or arboretum; or group discussion following the viewing of arboricultural videos. All of these are primarily visual forms of education. With the development of the Internet there are new opportunities for self-paced, interactive education, distance and continuing (life long) education. Most urban forestry or tree related books are text based, whereas a web-based resource can be principally image based, with a minimum of supporting text. In 2000 the authors were awarded a President’ s Teaching Grant for the development and assessment of web based learning materials for the identification, use and management of trees in urban areas. This site has been constructed for a target audience of undergraduate Landscape Horticulture, Horticultural Science and postgraduate Landscape Architecture students at University College Dublin. It is envisaged that in time it will facilitate delivery of distance education. This contribution articulates how this site was designed, tested and the student feedback response. Its innovation complements traditional teaching resources such as lectures, textbook and slides illustrating trees and their use in the designed landscape.

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The web site was modelled with a home page and hyperlinks to web pages pertaining to design with trees, tree management and tree identification. Digital images of trees in urban areas and scanned 35mm slides from the Departmental collection were saved as jpeg images, edited and uploaded to the web site. Background colour and tables were incorporated as a framework for images and text.

Virtual Learning Environment

Virtual learning environments facilitate the creation and management of on-line courses, including tools such as email, chat rooms and course assessments. In a Virtual Learning Environment, three web site structures are described, namely   Support model, with homepage, and support material such as lecture notes, and exercises;   Content and support model with homepage, lecture notes, on line tutorials, notes and exercises. More time would be spent on the computer than in the previous model.   Integrated model with homepage, full lecture notes, and notes, simulation or examples and exercises, and evaluation and assessment. Such a model would be used in distance learning where all contact with the lecturer and fellow students would be via computer. In this project the content and support model was adopted.

Design Technique

After an examination of existing web sites, this web-based design site was developed using the following category of software packages:   HTML editor- Netscape Composer and Microsoft Front Page,   Image editing tool - Adobe Photoshop,   Exceed File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to upload files to network, and   Web browser –Netscape Communicator or Internet Explorer The web site was designed using a HTML editor where the home page with background colour, text and tables, images and hyperlinks to other web pages pertaining to design with trees, tree management and tree identification. This particular page was termed the ‘ index’page and saved as index.html. Additional web pages were created in a similar manner and saved as course intro.htm; use of trees in the urban landscape.htm etc. Each page was provided with a navigation bar for ease of mobility throughout the site. Thumbnail clickable images connected to other pages were employed among tree sub groups of Fagus, Quercus and Sorbus.

Images of Trees An arboricultural collection of 35mm slides from the Departmental slide library were scanned and saved as jpeg images. A Digital camera with a resolution of 2.2 million pixels and a 64 MB smart card was used to acquire and store additional jpeg digital images. The stored images, size 1.0 MB were downloaded to the computer’ s hard drive where they were subsequently compressed to a suitable size for the web site using the image-editing tool Adobe Photoshop. The resultant images had a pixel height of 300 and a width of 200 with a resolution of 72, occupying on average 175k. These images were then inserted on the ''local'' web site with supporting text for later uploading using Exceed File Transfer Protocol (FTP) to the domain site on the Internet server. The pages have been designed for a screen resolution of 800 x 600 pixels. A statistical web counter has been incorporated to monitor site and page hits on an ongoing basis.

The web site

At present the web site titled Trees in the Urban Landscape - an exploratory web based guide with domain name http://www.ucd.ie/plantmat, which was commenced in 2000, is available to

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students on the University’ s web pages. It contains over 40 web pages with 280 images and text amounting to 22 megabytes. The home page consists of linked sites to course introduction, use of trees in the urban landscape, tree identification and management of trees in the urban landscape. The Guide encourages independent and self-paced learning and is accessible at all times. It is used as ‘ aide memoire’when recalling lecture content and when revising for examinations. A disadvantage experienced with some scanned 35mm slide images was a loss of clarity following compression.

Student Feedback Student response has been positive including such remarks as, easy to navigate, with a satisfactory balance of images and text and have described it as excellent and very useful resource in revision for examinations. Some would like more information on the web pages and would prefer to receive material via the Web rather than from books in the Library. A future plan is to embrace Blackboard as the principal pedagogical Virtual Learning Environment, which allows the student to access materials and communicate with the lecturer and other students over the Internet.

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Forest manager? Process manager! New skills acquired for tomorrows forest manager George BORGMAN, Borgman Beheer Consultancy, the Netherlands I will give an impression on the subject with a PowerPoint presentation. Presenting a broad spectrum of necessary competences for tomorrow’ s forest manager.

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Method for competence mapping in the development of staff and organisation Juha PRITTINEN, Helsinki, Sweden [email protected]

Abstract The City of Helsinki is paying special attention to work well-being approximately since four years. Systems for competence managing have been chosen as one of the main tools for this purpose. It has been shown that well-being at work rapidly decreases in situations where people continuously have tasks they feel they are unable to manage. The profile of the staff of the City of Helsinki is similar to many other European city organisations: large amount of specialists (up to 30%) will be retiring during the next 10 years. There is a risk that great amount of expertise, experience, skills and knowledge will be lost. Writing up competencies for different professions is chosen to be one of the main tools in facing this change. ” Skill passports”have already been used in recruiting and in improving staff mobility in the City organisation. In future they can be used as criteria for evaluation of private tenders. The start has been slow including pilot projects in 15 departments, but now a bigger project is launched by the City Education and Development centre (KOUKE). KOUKE has chosen the platform and bought a base licence for the whole city. Units pay EUR 20,00 a year per person for using the net platform. While pilots were targeted to leadership and specialist professions, now the largest staff groups are under mapping. In whole City scale, competencies of 10 000 people (25% of staff) will be mapped during 2003. We believe that competence descriptions for specialist roles are also valuable information when education programs are being planned in universities etc, for example in Urban Forestry.

Competence mapping as a method for organisation and staff development Background and future plans The City of Helsinki has started paying special attention to work-well-being approximately four years ago. Competence management has now been chosen as one of the main tools for this objective. Research has shown that well being at work rapidly decreases in situations where people continuously get tasks they feel they can not manage. The staff profile of the City of Helsinki is similar to many other European city organizations: A large amount of specialists (up to 30%) is going to retire during the next decade. A great amount of expertise, experience, skills and knowledge may be lost. Writing up qualification requirements for different professions and roles can be part of a more systematic change in management. ” Skill passports”have already been used for recruiting and improving staff mobility in the city organization. In the future when outsourcing of public tasks will increase, these qualifications can also be used as criteria for evaluation of private tenders. Change is a constant situation in many private and public organizations. In organizational restructuring processes it is very helpful to use qualification surveys to optimise the use of staff resources and make it easier for people to adapt to the changes. Employees should get a clear message of what qualifications are required in changing situations.

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Start has been slow including various pilot projects in 15 departments, but now the City Education and Development centre launches a bigger project. An appropriate net platform is chosen and a base licence for the whole City is bought as a part of this project. Units pay €20 a year / person for using the system. While pilots were targeted to leaders and experts, now the largest staff groups where also sick leave percentages are highest, are under mapping. In the whole city scale, performances of 10 000 people (25% of staff) will be mapped during 2003. Method in a nutshell   It is good to start by describing a participatory process plan for creating qualification lists. This process plan should be approved by leaders and staff.   Usually an organization has skill needs similar to everyone and skills for specialists. Hierarchy and good leadership are needed for identifying averages for roles and tasks in competence reports. Writing qualification lists need more discussions, target levels can rather quickly be agreed upon in final meeting before mapping.   Administrator then introduces lists with target levels in an Internet database.   Actual performances are evaluated on-line by self-evaluation. The system is very easy to use, but first evaluation should be done under supervision. At this stage some valuable comments usually occur. These will be noticed in the next update of qualifications. It is good to remember that this kind of system will never be perfect or satisfy everyone.   The results are discussed in chief –employee personal development conversations.   Based on these discussions, an annual learning program for the whole working unit is created by the administrator. System also evaluates ” willingness to improve”for each competence. Comparing willingness and actual gaps helps to focus for effective training. Skill levels are the key for evaluations. In Arc/RT Competence Manager® these are defined on the scale 1-5 as follows: 1 - Weak: I recognise the skill, but I cannot apply it in my work. 2 - Needs assistance: I recognise the skill, I can apply it with assistance in my work. 3 - Self-sufficient: I can apply the skill at the level required in my role. 4 - Expert: I can instruct my colleagues in this area. 5 - Specialist: I can provide training in this skill area. System offers many possibilities for staff competence analysis. These were demonstrated online in the presentation at 6th EFUF conference. Every chief can see role averages as well as individual reports of their staff. The administrator has access for all the results and can run role fit analyses and queries for example in situations when staff resources need to be moved. Administrator can also update and edit the qualification architecture, skill levels and other information in the database. More detailed information about Arc/RT Competence Manager® can be found at arctechno.com.

Situation at Public Work Departments Green division Green division is a rather small (58 employee’ s) specialist organization responsible for strategic planning, construction management and organizing the upkeep of green areas and forests in the City of Helsinki. Also large areas of forests in other municipalities owned by the City are under divisions control. The department has an internal production unit which takes care of more than 80% of the work ordered by green division. The following qualification list for the City of Helsinki forestry experts is still a sketch showing the situation by September 2003. Since IUFRO / EFUF meeting in May 2003 the list has been updated when other expert qualifications have been described. Other roles of Green division to be evaluated in 2003 include 18 employees who are carrying out the core processes: Green area

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planners, construction managers and maintenance managers. Qualification lists are still under construction and the list for urban foresters will hopefully get shorter and simpler than the one described below. It is also still lacking the required skill levels (1-5). The first survey will take place in October 2003 to get the training plan for 2004 derived from the results. The main forum for discussing the results will be chief-employee development discussions taking place twice a year. In the future the survey will be updated for these dates. The Public Works Department is under heavy organizational development. As a part of this process the present Green and Street divisions will be joined to form a new powerful manager for public open spaces in Helsinki. The new division will start from the beginning of 2004. Describing and surveying the qualifications needed for core processes that have to go on regardless the organization model is seen as a major tactical operation in preparation for the change. Follow-up of the benefits of this method will produce valuable information for a change in management in other similar organizations. I hope this list can help other cities facing similar challenges. Also it may be used as a source for curriculum design in education units. Any feedback on the qualification list and its use is more than welcome. I would also like to share experiences of other corresponding methods for improving urban green management.

Qualifications required for green division forestry experts Personal management Evaluation and development of work Learning techniques Change management Decision-making & prioritisation Organization Values and principles in working community Contact and support persons Management system of division Organization and decision making in Public Works & City Division strategy implementation Division core processes Communication and public participation Participatory planning process Resident meetings Meeting & negotiation techniques Group and team work Client service Public performing Official documents preparation Public information procedures Conflict situations management Written expression Swedish English Information technology File managing & transfer Data security Information retrieval Office hardware

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Software (levels 1-5 described by program functions) Windows XP Word PowerPoint Excel Access TeamWare Internet Explorer SAP (ordering and follow-up =2, project management =3) Planet MicroStation (browsing =2, 2d-drawing =3, modelling =4) Public Works drawing archives Green area register MapInfo T-Forest Corel / PhotoShop (photo editing=3, visualization=4) Economy & ordering Economical and action planning Procurement procedures and documents Knowledge of market situation Quality control of ordered products and services Funding sources Contract documents Annual contracts Maintenance cost factors Forest ownership Timber commerce Planning of nature management History, structure & population of Helsinki Green structure in City development plan Helsinki Green Area Program 1999-2008 Completed sector programs Completed green area & nature management plans Participation in city planning process Environmental protection & nature conservation Methods of urban nature maintenance Urban forestry practises Landscape management Information sources in planning Field survey, evaluation & analysis Idea generation & problem solving methods Planning process & methods Presentation & illustration techniques Ecology Urban forest ecosystems in Helsinki Distinctions of Helsinki flora & fauna Identification of valuable habitats Identification of endangered & indicator species Urban hydrology and wetland management

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Legislation, norms, standards EU directives for urban green Forest law Nature conservation law Land use & building law Water law Law on private roads Hunting law Forest certification systems Finnish green area classification Forest classification Guidelines of good forest management (TAPIO) Field work guidelines

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EXCURSION TO SONIAN FOREST (Brussels/Flanders, Belgium) – 22nd of May Some information about the Sonian Forest, Brussels (Belgium) The Sonian Forest (4.383 ha) is one of Belgium's most important state-owned forests. The forest is situated about 10 km south of Brussels. In Belgium, the Regional Governments are responsible for forest policy and management. Therefore, the Sonian Forest is situated in 3 regions: the Flemish Region (56% of the area); the Brussels Metropolitan Region (1.654 ha) and the Walloon Region (275 ha). During the excursion, the Flemish and Brussels parts were visited. The Flemish 2.454 ha are made up of forest itself (2.282 ha, of which 94% is deciduous and 6% coniferous woodland), roads (36 ha), glades (20 ha), and miscellaneous (forester's houses, nursery, race track) 95 ha. Until the 10th century this woodland area has been quite natural. Starting from the 10th century, continuous exploitation contributed to the steady disappearance of high value trees (oak, beech). The restoration of the forest began around 1736 with the acknowledgment of the need to improve its poor productivity. Based on the soil conditions (loamy soil), the common beech was chosen for replanting. Beech planting was continued until recently. In recent years the forest structure has undergone a change giving bird species an unprecedented opportunity to establish themselves. The structure of this old beech forest can be very valuable but this monoculture has been shown very unfavourable for ecological relations (lack of shrub and herb layer). However, in addition to the age/class patchwork of the forest, the size of felling coupes also plays a role in determining the amount of light coming into the forest. Recently, the most significant factor in changing the age/class distribution is regular windthrow. As a result of the major windthrow of 1990 about 60 ha was deforested in the Flemish part of the forest. 90 % of the trees were uprooted, giving the Forest Department the opportunity to leave some mature trees in the forest for decomposition. After this, some directives for ecological forest management were given:   planting bird- and insectfriendly shrubs such as sloe (Prunus spinosa L.), hawthorn (Crataegus sp.), willow (Salix sp.) and European cherry (Prunus avium L.) together with oak (Quercus robur L. and Q. petraea (Mattuschka) Liebl.), lime (Tillia sp.), hornbeam (Carpinus betulus L.) and field maple (Acer pseudoplatanus L.);   installing strips of grasses and plants and increasing the distance between trees and paths;   creating forest edges;   management of roads and glades: the possibility of leaving certain plants, like Cirsium sp. instead of mowing;   leaving old dead beech or oak trees. More information about the Sonian Forest can be found on the website

http://www.zonienwoud.be/

The Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment The Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment does research, makes the planning of environmental affairs, gives advice and information, grants permissions and controls for the Brussels Metropolitan Region. The institute is responsible for the sectors waste matters, air quality, sound, green space, water, soil and energy. Forests are an important part of the natural areas of the Brussels Metropolitan Region. The public Brussels parks cover about 1.735

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hectares. The Sonian Forest takes up 1.675 hectares of this green space (this means 10% of the whole area of the Metropolitan Region!) With regard to the green space in the Region, the Brussels Institute has a lot of tasks concerning the conservancy and the management of the green space and the forest. For example, protection and preservation of nature and the supervision of fauna, flora and natural resources. The institute is also responsible for the management of the global green space and specifically of 1.640 hectares of forest in the Sonian Forest. (Website: http://www.ibgebim.be)

The Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal (EBG) The Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal takes care of a practical knowledge about and a broad dissemination of sustainable and multifunctional management of forest, parks, green areas and nature. The target public is both the managers of these areas and the large public in Flanders. The Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal was established in march 1992 by the Flemish authorities at the one side and two non-governmental forest organisations at the other side (Flemish Forest Organisation and the Private Forestry Centre). Since 2000, the centre is independent but still directly linked with the founders that are represented in the board of directors. The Forestry Education Centre supplies specialised training and courses of different levels, provides general forestry information and education for the general public, supports the interaction between private forestry, tree cultivation, the wood chain and the authorities and operates the 'Jan van Ruusbroec' forest museum in Groenendaal. The organised training courses can be theoretical as well as practical. Some examples of the developed courses: determination of tree species, close-to-nature forestry, marking of thinning and forest inventory. A specific course combines all of these subjects and is designed for people intending to become forester or nature warden within the Flemish Administration. Some of the courses are strongly oriented towards forestry practice for example training courses on the use of chain saw, brush cutter and tractor. The centre produces yearly several publications. Concerning activities for the large public, the cooperation in the organisation of the 'Forest Week' and the programming of the Forest Museum ‘ Jan van Ruusbroec’must be mentioned. Besides this, excursions for children are organised on request of schools and in their neighbourhood. During these excursions, the basic forestry concepts are explained in an educational way. Finally the centre has an important advisory function mostly towards private forest owners but also towards the interested individual. (Website: http://www.ebg.be)

Forest Museum 'Jan van Ruusbroec' The forest museum introduces the visitors in the living environment of the forest and his inhabitants and the Sonian Forest. Thanks to the unique location, in the middle of the Sonian Forest, the forest museum is ideal to start walks and cycling tours through the largest forest in Flanders. The museum staff is also assisting within educational activities or guided walks. The museum is an initiative of the Ministry of the Flemish Community. The Forest and Green Areas Division of the Ministry (www.bosengroen.be) takes care of the management of the surrounding forest and the Forestry Education Centre Groenendaal guarantees the educational workshops. Next to the museum, you can explore one of the oldest tree collections in the Arboretum of Groenendaal.

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SESSION 3 ‘ Education’ Dutch Urban Forestry: a developing profession Michiel HOUTZAGERS, city of The Hague, the Netherlands [email protected]

Abstract

In the Netherlands many foresters speak about urban forestry, but few really practice it. Foresters rather speak to colleagues or trees than to city dwellers. This internal orientation results in conflicts and distress. Consultants bring in contemporary solutions but few fit urban foresters. The Dutch urban profession is therefore still under construction. Any modern forester should be well educated. An urban forester needs more than knowledge, he or she has to have social and strategic insight. The urban forester has to deal with many players with different impact, like for instance being acquainted to the major. Urban foresters have an open mind and must be able to imagine what it is to be a regular civilian. Listening is important but the urban forester must also have his own story to tell. He has management objectives to achieve and of course his professional judgment. Communication is essential because for city inhabitants trees are emotion. The urban forester must also be a good teacher to make people aware of longterm effects and sustainability. As any forester, an urban colleague needs a thorough education, university or at least a college degree. In the Netherlands there is unfortunately nowadays no special training program. Urban foresters learn the job by doing. More attention should be given to professional training and learning from each other’ s experiences. We as urban foresters most of all need personal intervision and professional coaching to create Dutch urban foresters.

Introduction: urban forestry within The Hague

The Hague is a city of more than half a million inhabitants, which is situated in the Randstad, one of the most crowded sections of Holland (4,5 million inhabitants). Forests are scarce within this windmill landscape. Within The Hague, there is 1.100 ha of green area of which approximately 550 ha is forested. The author is a civil servant for the city of The Hague and managing these forests. Within this urban setting he considers himself as working for the general public and politicians. Within his work, communication is essential. The most important part of his job is the direct contact with people, especially with opponents and pressure groups. From this experience, a profile for urban foresters in the Netherlands is described. Based on this profile, conclusions for the education and a strategy for the future are developed.

Urban forestry Within the Netherlands, many foresters speak about urban forestry, but few really practice it. It seems that foresters (even the urban ones) rather speak to colleagues (or even to trees) than to city dwellers. This internal orientation in many cases results in conflicts with the public and distress. At that moment, consultants are contracted to resolve these conflicts. But most of the time, consultants bring only contemporary solutions. To develop sustainable solutions, the urban foresters themselves should change. Therefore, the Dutch urban forester as a profession is still under development.

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Urban forester profile According to me an urban forester is a distinct profession which requires a special profile, which is described below. An urban forester should be a highly qualified professional, have a social and strategic insight, have an open attitude, be a communicator and a good teacher. He should also have insight in the urban conditions he is working in. Qualified professional -

Any modern forester should be well educated. A professional judgement is necessary, but is not enough. The urban forester knows his forest and its users. He knows the forest’ s potentials and its threats. But on the other hand there are management objectives to achieve.

Strategic insight -

An urban forester needs social and strategic insight. Urban forestry is sometimes more about dealing with people than dealing with trees. The urban forester has to deal with many players with a different impact, for instance he must be acquainted to the major. He must have a political insight and be aware of administrative susceptibilities. Managing the forest and applying measures leads in many cases to resistance; in fact it is easier to do nothing because the forest won’ t phone you. Therefore, urban foresters should be good at conflict management.

Open attitude -

-

An urban forester should have an open mind: his way of forest management is not always the only way. Also humour is important. The people like forests so why won’ t they like foresters? Most urban foresters are civil servants who often lack sufficient empathy for citizens. So imagine yourself as being a citizen, when you do your job. You should take people serious and try to create trustworthiness and confidence. In my opinion, it is all about trust and therefore about credibility. Personal preferences may clash with political decisions, so try to be independent of the politicians.

Communicator -

Communication is essential: try to establish two way communications. Listening is important, but also tell your own story: show the public what you do and why. Use press releases, folders, interviews and many excursions. In short: be a public relations manager!

Good teacher -

The urban forester should also be a good teacher, which is new for many Dutch foresters. Explain the past, present and future of the forests. Show the developing process: forests are constantly changing. Give insight in long term effects and processes. And last: develop as a teacher; this is a continuous learning process.

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Education When applying the urban forester profile to the Dutch foresters, we can say that many of them are professionals but lack the other characteristics like strategic insight, open attitude and being a teacher. To cope with this, we need education to train urban foresters. Urban foresters need a thorough education: they need an academic or at least a college degree. Unfortunately nowadays there is no Dutch urban forestry training programme. So, within the forestry education there should be more attention given to social and urban aspects. At this moment, urban foresters learn the job by doing. To support this, there is a clear need for continuous education and post graduate education. Urban foresters can also learn a lot from each other. This approach is already applied by the Dutch Pro Silva association. During their excursions, foresters discuss the Pro Silva management and how to implement these principles. Such a professional debate is necessary to keep oneself sharp. Apart from this, there is a specific need for specific scientific research on how people perceive forests (nature experience) and how they cope with changes.

Strategy for the future To create urban foresters: there is a need for professional training, to create a firm basis for the future urban foresters. A system of professional vision and continuous education should be set up, to learn from each other. To develop the profession, research within the field of urban forestry should be stimulated. To improve the skills, urban foresters should participate in professional debates.

Conclusion

In the Netherlands, the forests and their users are constantly altering. Therefore, the skills of foresters have to evolve continuously. In the urban environments, forestry is even more complex than in other parts of the country. For city dwellers, trees are emotions. Therefore a thinning has an enormous impact because healthy trees are cut. Also politicians play an important role: most aldermen want beautiful forests and no troubles at low costs. This seems easy to them but it is quite difficult to achieve for the urban foresters if they have to deal with many players. It is therefore the challenge of urban forestry to provide such forests.

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The education and certification of European Arborists as an example Willem P. VAN DELFT, IPC Groene Ruimte, the Netherlands [email protected]

Abstract

Who are the Arborists (urban foresters) in Holland or Europe? What does he know and what can he do? How do you recognise the Arborists (urban forester)? How do you implement new views on the work floor? How do you keep people’ s skills and know how up to date? I would like to share the results of the Leonardo AWEB project on certification and education of arborists in Europe, the impact the project has made in the participating countries and the continuation since the ending of the project.

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Ten years of educating multi-objective planning skills to foresters in Finland. Experiences and approaches Jukka TIKKANEN, Oulu Polytechnic School of Renewable Natural Resources, Finland, [email protected] Abstract

Until the 80´s forest management planning (FMP) in Finland was focusing on one universal goal, namely sustainable timber production. Implicitly it was thought that this goal is, as its best, reached when the foresters carefully measure the amount of growing stock, survey the standwised sylvicultural needs and give one single recommendation to the decision-maker. The objectives of the forest owners or even less the objectives of other stakeholders were not emphasised in planning. From the late 80´s forest research and education has focused on “ integrated”or “ multi-objective”decision support. Integration meant, at the beginning, that also other objectives than timber production were dealt with in planning calculations. Later especially methods based on MAUT were applied in participatory forest management planning so that valuations given by the participants were integrated in planning, handling participants as “ players”or “ decision criteria.”Anyhow, in practical forest management planning these quantifying, analytical methods have not been properly applied. Every-day management planning is still more or less descriptive, but nowadays so that environmental objectives are taken into account in planning as constraints. Between the years 1997 and 2001 the education of graduated foresters was almost totally dealing with these constraints. Forest act and forest certification created new concepts like key-biotopes, retention trees and buffer zones to be learned. Various classifications have been given in planning theory to describe competing planning approaches. The dominant planning thinking in FMP-education has aimed at quantitative modelling as planning ideal. The recent experiences of participatory planning projects from urban and state forests have given a signal that more deep change in planning thinking is needed than what has happened during the last decade. In the near future the essential themes of FMP-education will be practical skills of communication as well as understanding the role of power and collaboration in planning. Also new “ disaggregating”analytical tools should be taught for supporting mutual learning among all participants, not only supporting the final decisionmaking. This kind of orientation in planning education is a challenge and also politically sensitive when applied in a planning environment dominated by small scale private forests. The guiding principle of FMP should be the contingent view to planning instead of normative one. Not collaborative or any other planning discipline can be followed in all situations, therefore FMPeducation should offer new concepts supporting foresters, when the right participation strategy is to be chosen for each planning project.

Starting point

Forest education has seen a lot of changes in the last ten years in Finland. Before 1980 it was focusing on one goal: sustainable timber production. Forest survey and the comprehensive study of forest management guidelines were emphasized in education. Foresters were seen to be experts who were able to analyze the silvicultural needs of a stand and give one single recommendation to forest owners as for how he should treat his forest. The opinion or objectives of the forest owner himself let alone the objectives of other stake holders were not taken into consideration.

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Quantitative modelling era in education and research

In the second half of the 80’ s a new idea about multi-objective decision making and utility theory was introduced (Pukkala 1988, Kangas & Pukkala 1992). According to this idea the decision about forest management actions based on calculations which describe the pros and cons of forest management actions with hierarchic construction. From this calculation you can draw one number which indicates, if and how much one decision is better than the other and how to optimize the decision making. Planning was even defined to be optimization (Pukkala 1994). Also other forms of utilizing forests than timber production only, for example material values like berry and mushroom picking but also immaterial values like recreational values, hunting and hiking, were considered in multi-objective planning calculations. In education a lot of effort was put on understanding the basics and mathematics of these calculations. Interest towards and awareness of participatory forest management planning rose in the middle of the 90’ s in planning urban forests and forest areas owned by the state (Loikkanen et al. 1999). In education the earlier mentioned numerical methods and views were still emphasized: this utility theoretic thinking was applied also in participatory planning. In decision support systems the participants were treated as decision criteria or as players, whose preferences were enquired during the planning phase called objective analysis. Optimization algorithms produced one single utility index describing the overall goodness of courses of actions. It was the duty of the decision-maker to give proportional weighs to the interest-groups involved in the planning (Pykäläinen & al. 1999). How to identify the different interest groups and how to enquire their objectives were regarded as important skills of foresters. This development and the changes in planning theory have been visible in education, too. Post graduate programmes were to react to the changes and demands in the society. For example Oulu Polytechnic arranged post graduate program for foresters, which was called “ multiobjective planning” .

Practical planning still focusing on qualitative consideration but now approving the ecological constraints Nevertheless in practical planning work the reaction to these changes has been marginal. The quantifying, analytical methods have not been properly applied. Everyday forest management planning is still more or less descriptive. Environmental objectives are taken into account but more as constraints than as equitable aims. Between the years 1999 and 2002 the education of graduated foresters was almost solely dealing with ecological constraints. Biodiversity was the key word and foresters were trained to identify and classify forest habitats with special importance. Identification of endangered species of flora and fauna and their habitats as well as recognition of other kind of valuable ecological items were regarded extremely important. The new forest act and forest certification procedure created new concepts like key biotope, retention tree and buffer zone. The foresters were to learn and adopt them. To reach the educational aims set by these factors a large scale training project was carried out. A set of the so called Nature Diploma courses (Woodpecker course) was run in the years 19992002. About 3.000 foresters in Finland have taken this diploma. Also Oulu Polytechnic has arranged several of these courses with about a hundred participants during these years. Also a post graduate programme, the so called Nature Inventory programme was run in 1997-2001. The purpose was to train developers and specialist foresters who are able to do the official survey and collect data about the valuable ecological items in forest environment. This training took 20 study weeks and was aimed at professionals with either forestry or biology background. Many of the forest organisations started to employ also biologists during that time.

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The above mentioned large scale and reasonably intensive training period required deep consensus and commitment of all forestry organisations. The commercial stress from European “ green markets”followed by the development of Finnish forest certification system under the umbrella of PEFC was the cause of the education of foresters in Finland in the turn of the millennium. In the Finnish forest certification system there are two criteria directly demanding nature oriented education to forestry professionals and forest owners. Quite many of the so called “ corrective actions”required for getting the certification after auditing have included also educational elements. 95% of Finnish forests are certified which gave educators a lot of work. Up to the present day the changes in forest management planning education have changed the profile of the graduated planner as follows: the profile of an expert planner has changed into a supporter of a multi-objective decision making and this in turn into a role of a multi-skilled forester with a lot of knowledge of the environment and its values. In practical forest management planning work the expert profile is still holding its position but with great unanimity it has been attached with new elements of nature knowledge.

The social sustainability challenges the education of foresters It is quite obvious that the practical foresters nowadays accept and understand that the concept of sustainability includes also ecological elements, even though not as an equal objective compared to economic sustainability. Our experience as educators is that because foresters and ecologists share the same quantitative and objective orientation of how to understand the reality it has been moderately easy to integrate these two orientations in education. But the progress towards the social dimension of sustainability has been more delicate. The recent experiences of participatory planning projects in urban and state owned forest areas have shown that much deeper change in planning thinking itself is needed in the future. The changes of the last decade are not enough. The social elements in planning require involvement and ability to share power with stakeholders and courage to reflect also one’ s own pre-assumptions. What can be seen is that in the near future the essential themes of forest management planning are practical communication skills as well as understanding the role and importance of power and collaboration in the planning process. Also new disaggregating analytical tools should be taught for the support of mutual learning among all participants, not only for the support of the final decision making. Disaggregating analytical tools serve a consistent way to analyse qualitatively the pros and cons, the hopes and fears of planning alternatives and so support the decision-makers and participants in comparing the consequences of their decisions with their own value profile, and in collaborating openly with other stakeholders. As an example of a trial to approach the social element in forest management planning in Oulu Polytechnic we introduced a post graduate study-line called “ Interaction in Natural Resource and Environmental Planning” . The contents of that study-line illustrate the change: - Managing Interactive Planning Project - Psychology and Sociology of Planning - GIS and Internet –New Aspects in Interactive Planning - Organizing Planning Meetings –Practical Skills - Planning and Customer Feedback - Communication in Planning Project This kind of approach in planning education is a challenge and also it is a politically sensitive issue when applied to a planning area dominated by small scale private forests. We think that the guiding principle of forest management planning in a context like in Finland should be a contingent view to planning instead of a normative one. No collaborative or any other planning discipline can be followed in all situations, therefore education should offer new concepts to support foresters as for how to decide on the right procedure of participation that suits a particular situation.

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The future will show if what happened with multi-objective optimising planning will also happen with “ modern”participatory rhetoric: researchers and educators utilised concepts and tools which have remained strange to reality.

References Pukkala, T. 1988. Methods to incorporate the amenity of landscape into forest management planning. Silva Fennica 22(2):135-146. Kangas, J. and Pukkala, T. 1992. A decision theoretic approach applied to goal programming of forest management. Silva Fennica 26(3):169-176. Pukkala, T. 1994. Metsäsuunnittelun perusteet. (Basics of Forest management planning. Joen Forest Consulting. Joensuu. 242 s. In Finnish. Pykäläinen, J., Kangas, J. and Loikkanen, T. 1999. Interactive Decision Analysis in Participatory Strategic Forest Planning: Experiences from State Owned boreal Forests. Journal of Forest Economics 5(3):341-364. Loikkanen, T., Simojoki, T. & Wallenius, P. Participatory approach to natural resource management. A guide Book. Finnish Forest and Park Service. 96 pp.

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SESSION 4 ‘ Communication: the New Agenda’ Courses for European Urban Foresters within the Urban Woods for People Project Johanna FROM, Regional Forestry Board of Mälardalen, Sweden The Swedish-French project Urban Woods for People, financed by EU-Life, demonstrates ways to enhance, encourage and improve recreation for the general public in urban woodlands. Production of handbooks, multi-management plans, structures for more efficient dialogue between private forest owners, municipalities and the general public are some examples of activities within Urban Woods for People targeting urban foresters and urban planners. Guided tours, design of a nature trail, educational programmes, different structures of public participation and creation of web-sites that enable communication between users and forest managers are activities all targeted at the general public. Pilot urban forests in Sweden and France are used to evaluate ways of stimulating forest recreation presented in the project. During the autumn of 2004 Urban Woods for People will offer national and international courses in France and Sweden targeting urban foresters and planners. The courses are an important ingredient for dissemination of the project. The number of deliverables from the project will be large. It is therefore necessary to select those results we think might be of greatest interest for a European public. It is also important to know the participants’desires and expectations in relation to such a course. The EFUF meeting in Arnhem was a suitable occasion for such a survey when urban foresters and planners from different parts of Europe met. The participants at the forum were asked to answer a questionnaire containing 14 questions and the possibility to add information considered to be of assistance in planning a course. Results and conclusions are presented below.

Results

The number of answers for each alternative are shown below. Background Male Female

39 10

Age (average): 42 years Education

some kind of university degree. Forestry, Biology, Landscape architecture, Wild life management, geography.

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Type of employer/principal? Authorities The Forest Industry Non Profit making Organisation Another Namely: Community forests, self employed, research/university, education/training, nursery

17 2 12 16

How many years have you worked with questions concerning urban forestry? 0-2 years 14 +2-5 years 7 +5-10 year 8 +10 years 20 In what ways has your competence related to urban forestry OK)? Through literature that I acquire personally My employer gives me suggestions on suitable literature By participating in national conferences By participating in international conferences By participating in national courses By participating in international courses Through practical work

developed (several alternatives 31 7 24 34 14 5 37

Do you consider that you can “ keep up”with regard to the required level of competence? Yes, definitely 9 Yes, pretty good 19 No, not really 14 Definitely No 0 Can’ t say 5 Development of competence Are you interested in additional opportunities to develop your competence? Yes No If “yes”which form(s) do you find interesting? Conferences (oral and written information mixed with excursions) Courses (containing theoretical and practical components) Information (written information either by letter or via the web) Others; Web based learning, discussions, interaction with people, excursions, learning by doing, ways of communication, meetings in the woods

47 1 33 35 28 7

Rank the following items in accordance with what you consider the most important for you personally when deciding whether to register for an international course (1=most important, 6 least important) Language 3 Length of the course 4 Content 1 Disposition and work form 2 Price 5 Other, what place, international representation, funding, level of contributions 6

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Are you interested in participating in an international course offered in English or French? Yes 42 No 3 If the course is offered in English or French which language does you prefer? English French

41 4

How many days do you consider to be a suitable length for an international course? 2 days 1 3 days 15 4 days 11 5 days 16 2 * 5 days 1 Please rank the following subjects in accordance with what you consider the most interesting and thus should be included in a course regarding urban forestry (1=very interesting, 7=least interesting). The examples are taken from the projects Urban Woods for People and NeighbourWoods. A. Urban Forestry policy-making; developing strategies, visions, policies B. Review of new manuals and guidelines Manuals under production by Urban Woods for People:   Planning and management of urban forests Zoning, green management plans adapted for recreation, cooperation between local authorities, the general public, private landowners,   Measurements of the quality and quantity of recreation Why measure? How to measure?   How to make urban nature more accessible to disabled people? C. Tools to communicate with the general public   Meet children through education and guiding   Public participation at different levels (policy making, design, management)   Establishing web sites for two-way communication   With focus on immigrants D. Activities in which you personally participate –practical activities   Planning of urban woods   Visits to experience successful activities E. Decision support and other information systems in urban forestry (e.g. GIS, visualisation, databases) F. Interdisciplinary and partnerships in urban forestry; how can effective alliances and partnerships be created? G. Other subject/-s The human values, storytelling, folklore, literature, urban greening, funding aspects, communication strategies, expanding the concepts of urban forestry to get beyond woodlands in an urban contest and to include all the components of the urban forests.

3 4

1

2 6 5 5

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What time of the year do you consider to be the best time for participating in a course? January-March 11 April-June 18 July-September 10 October-December 11 Other information Additional information you consider might be of assistance in planning a course?   Form dates and arrangements well in advance   Role games, include traditional knowledge, add cultural-historical dimension, contribution of each participant, direct involvement, the expertise of neighbourwoodresearch project could be helpful (Finish part).   Important to have a balance in participants from different countries and if possible disciplines/professional backgrounds

Conclusions   49 participants answered the questionnaire.   Every fifth urban forester is a woman.   The participants at the forum were well educated in a variety of fields with a variety of employers.   A large amount of the answers show a long time experience of work within the field but also a large amount of “ new comers” .   The practical parts at work and international conferences are important ways to develop competence within the field.   There is a large interest in the subject but also a wish to get more experience.   Courses and conferences are found to be interesting ways to develop more knowledge.   There is a great interest in participating in an international course if it is held in English.   3-5 days are a suitable length of an international course.   Tools to communicate with the general public, policymaking and review of new manuals and guidelines all with a large proportion of activities in which you personally participate were highest ranked.   Spring was suggested as the best part of the year for an international course.

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The U-turn of the manager Reijer KNOL, State Forest Service region Flevoland-Overijssel, the Netherlands, [email protected] In the Netherlands it is quite common that within a short period of time the environment of a wooded area changes from rural to urban. Some forests become even encircled by a village or a town. It happens to woods from tens of hectares to woods of hundreds of hectares. Before the village neared the forest, the infrastructure and management of the forest were minimal. There was just one cycle track and footpath, management was aimed at production and nature and not much on recreation. In their leisure time, people come by bicycle or mainly by car to walk their dog. The visitor is a guest and the manager sets the rules to be valued by the guest. If a business man wants to develop a camping, a hotel or an arena, the forest owner directs the manager by a “ no… unless”policy. The local authorities generally have little interest in the forest. When the town or village expands to such an extent that it will border or even surround the wooded area, the forest infrastructure, the forest management and the forest owner’ s policy are changing and the interest of the local authorities is strongly increasing. But the highest impact is caused by the users of the wood. Instead of being a guest he/she becomes a visitor who feels although he/she owns the forest. The visitor wants to be heard about his/her wishes and complaints and wants to be involved in the management. The owner’ s directing policy for the manager turns from a “ no… unless”into a “ yes… unless” . Before, the manager was used to set the rules. Now he must make a turn of a hundred and eighty degrees by reckoning the visitor’ s wishes, the local authorities’claims and the owner’ s “ yes… unless”policy. Last but not least the management gets a strong recreational emphasis. This means that:   the management of the woods must change;   information must be given;   the inhabitants of the village or town have to be involved in the management;   the layout of the woods has to change. As a result of this, many wishes of organizations, companies and local authorities come up for discussion. The manager will have to make a lot of effort in order to make this U-turn. Therefore, he needs the support of the forest owner. There is a clear need for   extra training in the field of information;   extra training in dealing with volunteers;   extra training in dealing with the inhabitant’ s representatives;   extra training in the field of protection of interests and   intensive coaching through the whole process. Instead of being the king of the woods the manager must become the king’ s servant.

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Two-Way Education in Vordenstein Park Management Ann VAN HERZELE, Free University Brussels and Veerle Heyens, Ministry of the Flemish Community, Brussels, Belgium [email protected] & [email protected] Abstract

The 140 ha Vordenstein domain is located at the edge of Antwerp’ s urban fringe and dates back to the 14th century. It was one of the typical ‘ hoven van plaisantie’or privately owned country estates where well-off Antwerpians enjoyed leisure time. In 2001 the Flemish Community who ownes 110 ha of this domain, decided to start a pilot project in the framework of their vision of ‘ Harmonious Park and Green Management’ . Inherent to this vision is a people-oriented approach. In collaboration with the Human Ecology Department of the Free University Brussels (VUB), a communication process with the public was started. A main objective was to actively involve a wide array of park users in the management. Over the past two years a variety of participatory tools were tested. Based on the lessons we learnt –along with VUB experiences in other cases –we compiled an idea book for participatory practice: “ Het Park Mét Iedereen: Ideeënboek voor Participatie in Groen”(” The Park with everyone, ideas for participation within the green management” ; AMINAL, Afdeling Bos en Groen). An area of continuous attention in the communication process was strengthening the bonds between the public and the management. In 2002, a ‘ Friends Group’was spontaneously grown out of the process. Since then at regular times field discussions are organised in Vordenstein as well as visits to other parks. We observed that park users and managers begun to develop shared and complementary understandings of various issues such as accessibility, biodiversity, garden culture, etc. Referring to the conference theme ‘ Educating the urban foresters’we suggest here that a ‘ two-way education’process is a relevant outcome of our approach. In a very concrete way, from the experience of practice itself, both participants and managers engage in a continuing process of education. For example, participants enjoy to learn about the various technical, administrative and other characteristics of the management and the implications for them. The managers, on the other hand, benefit from the participants in discovering the limits of their expertise, seeing beyond taken-for-granted assumptions, widening their view on the park’ s qualities and hence enlarging their capacity to develop new ideas. In addition, managers learn new skills: how to provide information in the way that makes sense to the public, how to listen and how to enable others to speak for themselves, while maintaining their professionalism.

Introduction The increase of participatory practice in urban forestry and the investments made in making these processes work are often justified with the many benefits they may provide. The benefits considered range from an informed and people-responsive plan to the personal satisfaction and empowerment of the public. The new manager of the Vordenstein Park in Flanders (Northern Belgium) brought a less obvious aspect to our attention. He told that although he needs to invest a lot of time to involving the public, he gets even much more in return from them. For example, he explained how the inputs from the public inspired him to see things in a new perspective. Drawing from the experiences in the Vordenstein communication process, this paper aims to shed some light on how urban foresters can learn from the public.

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Vordenstein: a Communication Process with the Public The 140 ha Vordenstein domain is located in the North East of Antwerp (the largest city of Flanders) and dates back from the 14th century. It was one of the typical ‘ hoven van plaisantie’ or privately owned country estates where well-off citizens of Antwerp enjoyed their leisure time. At this moment, the Flemish Forestry Administration owns 110 ha of this domain. Vordenstein has a double structure. The largest part consists of woodland, designed in a French baroque style with forest stands divided by characteristic star-shaped alley structures. The other part is in English landscape style with fields of grass, groups of trees and a walled orangery garden with flowerbeds and thematic gardens. In 2001 the Flemish Forestry Administration decided to start a pilot project in Vordenstein within the framework of their ‘ Vision on Harmonious Park and Green Management’ . This vision strives for a balance between measures focusing on people, nature and environment. The management plan is the central document for implementing this vision. Inherent to the harmonious management vision is a people-oriented approach and in collaboration with the Human Ecology Department of the Free University of Brussels, a communication process with the public was started. This pilot project aimed to test different methods to actively involve a wide array of users in the management. The experiences were published in a manual for public participation in greenspace (Van Herzele and Heyens, 2003).

Shifting Perspectives on the Public’ s Role For the Flemish Forestry Administration the communication process was a very new experience. The traditional perspective on the roles of the administration and the public is one of service delivery of the administration towards the public. It means that people are asked to inform the management about their preferences and needs in the beginning of the planning process. At the end they are given the opportunity to provide their comments and support for the plans the managers have in mind. Much attention is given to make the public aware of the benefits of forests and trees and to educate them about environment and nature. In contrast to such a perspective we aimed the public to be given a much more active role in the management. We involved the people as partners in shaping ‘ their’park in an interactive relationship of collaboration and mutual learning. From the outset we realised that working from such a perspective needs more time and that after a two years experience in Vordenstein we may say that we are on the right track. This paper focuses on the last perspective: participation as a process of mutual learning. Shifting perspectives on the public’ s role from informants/supporters from beneficiaries from representatives from education/sensitisation

to to to to

inventors/creators ‘ owners’ collaborators mutual learning

Facilitating Mutual Learning In order to facilitate a mutual learning process, some important choices were made with regard to questions of who, when, how and what. Who? People as experts It was the aim to engage a very diverse group. People from different ages, backgrounds, etc. may bring in a diversity of knowledge and life experiences generating a rich and creative discussion.

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When? Keeping the contact lively Building relationships and trust between the urban foresters and the public are inherently longterm processes. Through personal communication, group work and popular events, these relationships were gradually developed. With the creation of a 'Friends' group an important step was taken in maintaining and further extending the collaborative approach. How? Interacting with people on their own terms People were encouraged to express themselves in different ways: writing notes, letters or poems, taking photographs of places of special meaning to them, joining in discussions, telling their stories, etc. During interviews in the forest, for example, people showed their favourite trees, which they like for different reasons: because of their symbolic meaning, good shadow, opportunities for play, soft bark, ‘ eye catcher’in the right place or because they reminded them to fairy tales, such as beeches having ‘ faces’ . What? From knowledge to action People were actively involved, not merely in defining the qualities of the park, but also in visioning and action. During a first workshop (partly in the field) visioning exercises were undertaken to emphasize the aspirations for the park over the next 20 years. Provocative tools helped to start lively discussions at the beginning of the visioning exercises. Results were used to propose a draft vision to be presented and discussed during the next workshop.

Turning the Vision into Action In the very concrete on site situation, people as well as urban foresters may feel most comfortable. Regular site walks were organised to discuss some practical choices and dilemmas of design and management. For example, the design of a waste place was discussed. It was surprising how the participants used the shared vision framework developed during the workshops when discussing about practical solutions. For example, from the vision it was jointly decided to apply a naturalistic design to the waste place since it was formerly agreed that the ‘ formal’must be kept inside the orangery garden. During another field discussion it was decided to cut a large part of the rhododendrons in order to open up the main alleys. Members of the ‘ Friends’group proposed to inform other park users about this action and organised guided walks during the ‘ Day of the Park’ . This occasion was also used to attract new members to the group. The Vordenstein example also shows that the long-term engagement which is so essential in urban forestry may involve shifts between different social settings. For example, small groups may be very productive in planning, organizing and working jointly with the urban forester. But in most of the cases involving the wider community is essential, as it promotes the initiative throughout the locality (Van Herzele et al., 2004).

Reflective communication as a source of renewal From our experience in Vordenstein we suggest that a certain ‘ two-way education’is a relevant outcome of our approach. In a very concrete way, from the experience of practice itself, both participants and managers engage in a continuing process of education. For example, participants enjoy learning about the various technical, administrative and other characteristics of the management and its implications. The urban forester, on the other hand, benefits from the public by gaining a better understanding and a wider view of the qualities of the park and the special meaning of particular places to people.

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When communicating with the public, professionals may learn to move beyond taken for granted assumptions and discover the limits of their own expertise, not only related to facts but - more importantly –related to ways of ‘ looking at’ . In this way, they may become able to see the park management from new perspectives and to enlarge their capacity to develop new ideas. For example, a route which was unintentionally made by people walking through the forest, can be regarded as being problematic and thus can be removed. Through dialogue with users, the urban forester can start to appreciate and manage those routes in order to make them even more passable. In addition, the feedback from the public helps to build an urban forester’ s identity as a manager of the park. Finally, the forestry professional may learn new skills from the practice of communication: how to provide information in the way that makes sense to the public, how to listen and how to enable others to speak for themselves. Urban forestry is very much learning from practice, and the public can be an important part of it.

Literature Van Herzele, Ann and Heyens, Veerle. 2003. Het park mèt iedereen. Ideeënboek voor participatie in groen (The park with everyone. Idea catalogue for participation in greenspace). Ministerie van de Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Afdeling Bos en Groen. http//www.bosengroen.be Van Herzele, Ann, Collins, Kevin and Tyrväinen, Liisa. 2004. Involving people in urban forestry: a discussion of participatory practices throughout Europe. In Urban Forests and Trees in Europe, edited by Nilsson, K., Randrup, T.B. & Konijnendijk, C.C.. Springer Publishers.

Picture 1. Vision workshop in the field (photo by Paul De Groot)

Picture 2. Provoking discussion on forest use (photo by Ann Van Herzele)

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SESSION 5 ‘ Miscellaneous’ Lunar Rhythms in Trees: Traditional knowledge under a new scientific light - A contribution to an exchange at higher levels between public and urban foresters Ernst ZÜRCHER, School of Architecture, Civil and Wood Engineering HSB - Wood Division, Biel, Switzerland, [email protected] Abstract

In parallel to agriculture / horticulture and for more than two thousand years, certain forestry practices and rules regarding tree breeding and felling have been carried out in observance to moon cycles. A general review of the different types of rules followed (known in Europe and on other continents and stemming from both traditional sources and current practitioners) shows that tree reaction on pruning / coppice shoots on the one hand, special timber qualities and uses on the other hand, are mentioned in relation to a specific pruning or felling date. This moonrelated felling date supposedly ensures advantageous physiological reactions or special wood properties. The experimental part presents scientific studies especially concerned with the factor “ moon phases, as synodic rhythm” . They deal on the one hand with elements of tree biology such as germination, initial growth or protein content of tropical trees and palms (where strong and systematic variations and their complicating aspects have been observed) and reversible, circadian fluctuations of stem diameters as well as of bio-electric potentials. On the other hand, some works concentrate on wood properties and the relation between wood and water in function of the felling date. On this base, a fruitful exchange is possible between urban foresters and the public society, related to a "cosmic" dimension of trees and to the philosophic meaning of this level. Keywords: Chronobiology, felling date, Moon phases, traditional forestry, tree biology, wood properties

World Trees, Cosmic Trees In many ancient cultures, trees are objects of worship, or there is a mythic World Tree, Cosmic Tree or Tree of Life that plays a central role. The adoration of trees is well known from the Celtic culture. Several tribe names are an expression of the dimension taken by trees: the Eburones and the Eburovices contain the word ibor (yew, Taxus baccata), while the Lemovices took their name from the elm, lem (Ulmus sp.) [1]. Norse or Germanic mythology is built on a tree called Yggdrasil, thought to be an ash (Fraxinus excelsior), although some commentators suppose it to be a yew. There are few symbols in myths as challenging or as rewarding as this tree. A.Chetan and D.Brueton [2] describe it as follows: "Yggdrasil is the guardian tree of the gods who maintained the fabric of the universe, and the axis that binds together the three worlds earth, heaven and underworld. From here the gods preside, and from his seat Odin can look into all three worlds at once. Yggdrasil rises to the sky, and its branches overspread the whole of creation. Three roots support it; one stretches to Hel, the world of the dead, another to the world of the frost giants and the third to the world of humans. At its feet are several springs tended by the goddesses of fate, the Norns, and also the wells of Mimir and Hvergelmir. The Norns - Urd, Verdandi and Skuld (Fate, Being and Necessity) - decide human fates. … " . Beside their spring the gods assemble daily, riding across the rainbow that joins earth and heaven. […] The waters of the well of Mimir are the source of

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wisdom. […] Hvergelmir's spring is the source of eleven rivers, and serpents lurk nearby. Around the base of the trunk is coiled a huge serpent who continually gnaws the roots … " . A deeper study of other myths and cosmovisions shows striking similarities, as mentioned by J.Narby [3]. A South American shamanic description under the influence of ayahuasca, a hallucinogen drug, depicts almost the same World Tree, as a living spiritual column between Gods, Heaven and Earth, linked to waters and surrounded by a giant serpent, the Anaconda. Such similarities, which cannot be explained by direct or indirect cultural influence, must have an explanation in a common psycho-spiritual constitution of human individuals, expressed in similar archetypes, as described by C.G.Jung. One important aspect of this central role of trees in human culture and in our individual perception of nature is that they are embedded in different types of physiological cycles. These life rhythms are linked to the day-night-alternation, to the seasons (both from the apparent movement of the sun), but are also synchronous with cycles of the moon, of solar activity, of planets and with the orientation of the zodiacal constellations. The cosmic dimension of life has always been mentioned in old cultures; scientific research (chronobiology) is now progressively discovering some of these rhythms related to the astronomic periphery, in plants and animals as well as in human life. The present article mentions some examples of traditional knowledge of this type linked to trees. It presents some corresponding, further leading scientific evidence, to demonstrate that the relationship between man and nature has also deep, far-reaching and unexpected dimensions.

Forestry traditions According to documents from more than 2500 years ago, certain forestry practices and rules regarding tree felling and wood utilization have been carried out in observance to moon cycles, as in agriculture and horticulture practices. One can review the different types of rules followed regarding pruning, coppicing and felling. These rules are known in Europe and on other continents and stem from both traditional sources and current practitioners. The analysis of these rules shows that tree reaction is thought to depend on the specific date of the intervention. Special timber qualities and uses are also connected to such specific dates. The moon-related felling date supposedly ensures advantageous physiological reactions or special wood properties [4, 5]. Specific wood utilizations based on well-defined properties mentioned in forestry felling traditions are the following: construction timber, shingles, wooden chimneys, firewood, wine barrels, cheese packaging boxes, longbows, wooden ploughs, resonance wood for musical instruments, etc. [6]

Role of scientific research The aim of research lies in the critical examination of a possible element of objective truth underlying the above statements and in understanding the phenomena which could be responsible for the experiences described. Valid facts and practices must be separated from deviation and superstition. At stake here from the scientific point of view is usually the synodic lunar rhythm (period 29.5 days); much less research has been carried out about the role of the two other main moon rhythms (the sidereal and the tropic, both with a period of 27.3 days) in biological processes. A good review of scientific research on lunar rhythms in organisms has been published under the title “ Biologie des Mondes”[7].

Chronobiological (re)discoveries and confirmations

Some scientific studies specially concerned with the factor “ moon phases, as synodic rhythm” deal on the one hand with elements of tree biology such as germination [8,9] and the initial

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growth of tropical trees (where strong and systematic variations and their complicating aspects have been observed) [8, 10]. Recent research carried out jointly by several US Universities tested, at the level of secondary chemistry, the Central-American indigenous practice of timing the harvest of palm leaves for roofing, in relation to the moon phases. Significant differences appeared in carbon content and calcium content as well as in hemicellulose fraction, that could explain the effective higher durability [11]. Reversible, circadian (daily) lunar-synodic fluctuations of stem diameters (for trees held under constant conditions) [12] provoked a controversial discussion [13]. An interesting differentiating synthesis has recently been achieved by K. Holzknecht [14], through long-term measurement of (bio-)electric potentials on European spruce and Swiss stone pine: while during the growth season the measured electric potentials followed a diurnal rhythm (responding to the known diurnal changes of climatic factors), the potential variations were in correlation with the calculated circadian gravimetric tides during the decreasing lunar phases in the winter period. At that time, the global curve exhibited a lunar and semi-lunar course. Interestingly, there are periods of rest during the growth season where the tidal correlation briefly becomes evident too. On the utilitarian field of material technology, some works concentrate on the relation between wood and water according to the felling date (drying process) and on the consequences for the wood properties [15]. Systematic and repeated tree felling (6 x 5 spruce trees) in two opposite lunar situations from the point of view of the three rhythms mentioned were carried out in Zurich during the winter 1998-1999, followed by the analysis of the drying behavior and the determination of oven-dry density and compression strength, before exposing a series of samples to weathering conditions. While the fresh density of the felled trees, as a result of random selection for felling rank, was quite equivalent, significantly lunar-correlated variations appeared after the drying process in the oven-dry density and in the relative density (this is the value of oven-dry density in % of the initial density) (Figure 1). The significance is obviously due to the stronger variations in December and January; these variations are more marked for the outer sapwood samples than for the inner, drier heartwood material tested. A further important indication of the reality of the investigated phenomenon is given by two similar, geographically independent research studies in this field with European spruce (J. Triebel 1998 [16], with 120 trees; U. Seeling and A. Herz [17], with 60 trees). These two previous investigations with 6 felling dates each, however, could not significantly outline the influence of the felling date on the wood properties on a global level. But if the sapwood ovendry density curves of the three sites and the three years in succession are compared, then it becomes obvious that from the felling date 3 (4) to the felling date 6 (7) significant systematic and parallel fluctuations between waxing moon ("full moon", fm) and vaning moon ("new moon", nm) oven-dry density values exist (Figure 2). This means that for the whole of the 6 December and January nm-felling, the kiln-drying density is significantly higher than that of the 3 intercalated fm-felling. The relation to the December fm-value amounts to 11.6% and 9.0 % respectively for Zurich, about 8.7 % and 17.0 % for Tharandt and about 12.0 % and 9.1 % for Freiburg I. Br. For the determination of the compression strength for each of the four cardinal directions in the sapwood and the heartwood, eight even-grown samples per tree were tested. The data show a very close correlation with the value distribution of oven-dry densities for the sapwood as well as for the heartwood (correlation coefficients sapwood: 0.989 / heartwood: 0.971). In both cases the systematic differences between "full moon" and "new moon" samples of the series 3 6 were obvious. Sapwood as well as heartwood showed the most significant differences between felling date 4 (nm) and felling date 5 (fm): 17.8%, resp. 22.6%. For the whole investigation, the nm-average value in sapwood (47.2 N/mm²) surpasses the fm-average value (41.9 N/mm²) by 12.6%. The heartwood’ s nm-average value (40.7 N/mm²) surpasses the fm-average value (36.6 N/mm²) by 11.2% (Figure 3). The comparison of the initial fresh densities of the samples illustrates the reason for the

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traditional felling practices: from initially relatively homogeneous material (average fresh density of sapwood nm-samples only 1.0 % higher than the average of sapwood fm-samples / for heartwood samples: 1.8 % lower), it is possible to regulate the drying behaviour and the final physical wood properties through an accurate choice of the felling date in relation to the position of the moon, in complement with the correct season. The analysis of the samples after 2.5 years of weathering suggests that these effects have a permanent character [18]. In addition to mechanical properties and durability, traditional rules mention differences when the wood is used for energy. Unexpectedly, burning tests and statistical analyses published by Seeling [19] show that samples from “ waxing periods”have actually higher heat values than samples from “ waning periods” .

Dry dens. / Initial density [%]

Relative Density after Felling dates (Sapwood) 60 55 50 45 40 35 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Felling dates

Figure 1. Systematic, lunar-correlated variations of European spruce-wood densities: Relative density (Oven-dry / Initial fresh density) of sapwood after 6 successive lunarcorrelated felling dates in Zurich. 1 / 3 / 5: felling before Full Moon; 2 / 4 / 6: felling before New Moon (mean values +/- standard deviations; after data in Zürcher and Mandallaz, 2001)

Figure 2. Systematic variations of oven-dry sapwood-densities of European spruce after successive lunar-correlated felling dates in 3 sites and 3 years. Zurich 1998-1999: plain line / Freiburg i.Br. 1997-1998: dotted line 1 / Tharandt 1996-1997: dotted line 2. 1 / 3 / 5 / 7: felling before Full Moon; 2 / 4 / 6: felling before New Moon (after Zürcher and Mandallaz, 2001; Seeling and Herz, 1998; Triebel, 1998)

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Compression strength (N/mm2)

Compression strength FM / NM (Sapwood and Heartwood) 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1

2

3

4

5

Sapwood FM / NM (1 / 2) - Heartwood FM / NM (4 / 5)

Figure 3. Comparative mean values of compression strength of sapwood (left) and heartwood (right) of European spruce (Picea abies) from successive lunar-correlated felling dates in Zurich. White bars: felling before Full Moon; dark bars: felling before New Moon (mean values +/- standard deviations; after data in Zürcher and Mandallaz, 2001)

Perspectives

On this basis, a fruitful exchange is possible between foresters (especially urban foresters) and the general public, related to a “ cosmic”dimension of trees and to its philosophic meaning. As a matter of fact, these presented works on astronomic rhythms in organic life give an insight into an unexpected common level to trees and human beings. They lead to a rehabilitation of parts of ancient, almost forgotten knowledge. One positive consequence is the enhancement of the intrinsic value of each tree, from a physical, and also a social and spiritual point of view.

References 1. De Vries, J., 1977. La religion des Celtes. Payot, Paris. 2. Chetan, A., Brueton, D., 1994. The Sacred Yew. Arkana, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, England. 3. Narby, J., 1995. Le Serpent cosmique, L'ADN et les origines du savoir. Georg Editeur, Genève. 4. Hauser, A., 1973. Rural rules. A Swiss collection with comments (In German). Artemis Verlag, Zürich, München. 5. Broendegaard, V.J., 1985. Ethnobotany: Plants in traditions, history and popular medicine Tree felling and moon phases: superstition or folk-visdom? (In German). In: Contributions to Ethnomedicine, Ethnobotany and Ethnozoology. Verl. Mensch und Leben, Berlin, Bd. 6, 8292. 6. Zürcher, E., 2000. Lunar-related traditions in forestry and phenomena in tree biology (In German with a French and an English summary). Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen, Journal Forestier Suisse, 151(11), 417-424. 7. Endres, K.P. and Schad, W., 1997. Biologie des Mondes. Mondperiodik und Lebens-rhythmen. Hirzel Verlag, Stuttgart / Leipzig.

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8. Zürcher, E., 1992. Rhythmicities in the germination and initial growth of a tropical forest tree species (in French with a German and an English summary). Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen, Journal Forestier Suisse, 143, 951-966. 9. Bagnoud, N., 1995. Rhythmicities in the germination and the initial growth of 4 tree species of the Soudano-Sahelian Zone. Moon phase trial (In French). Groupe de Foresterie pour le Développement, Intercoopération, Berne. 10. Zürcher, E., 1998. Chronobiology of Trees: Synthesis of traditional phytopractices and scientific research, as a tool of future forestry. 3rd IUFRO Extension Working Party Symposium "Extension Forestry: Bridging the gap between Research and Application", July 19-24, 1998, College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. 11. Vogt, K.A., Beard, K.H., Hammann, S., O'Hara Palmiotto, J., Vogt, D.J., Scatena, F.N., Hecht, B.P., 2002. Indigenous Knowledge Informing Management of Tropical Forests: The Link between Rhythms in Plant Secondary Chemistry and Lunar Cycles. Ambio Vol. 31 No. 6, Sept. 2002. 12. Zürcher, E., Cantiani, M.-G., Sorbetti Guerri, F., Michel, D., 1998. Tree stem diameters fluctuate with tide. Nature, 392 (16 April 1998), 665-666. 13. Vesala, T., Sevanto, S., Paatero, P., Nikinmaa, E, Perämäki, M., Ala-Nissilä, T., Käätiäinen, J., Virtanen, H., Irvine,J., Grace, J., 2000. Do tree stems shrink and swell with tides ? Tree Physiology 20, 633-635. 14. Holzknecht, K., 2002. Electrical potential in the sapwood of Norway spruce (Picea abies L.) and stone pine (Pinus cembra L.) and their relationship with climate and lunar phase. PhDThesis G0643, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Institute of Botany, Leopold-Franzens-University, Innsbruck. 15. Zürcher, E. and Mandallaz, D., 2001. Lunar Synodic Rhythm and Wood Properties: Traditions and Reality. Experimental Results on Norway Spruce (Picea abies Karst.). Proc. 4th Int. Symp. Tree Biology and Development. Isabelle Quentin Publ., Montreal. 16. Triebel, J., 1998. Moon phase-dependent tree-felling - A literature survey and research on some properties of Norway Spruce (Picea abies Karst.) (In German). Technical University of Dresden, Forest Sciences, Tharandt. 17. Seeling, U. and Herz, A., 1998. Influence of felling date on shrinkage and water content of Norway Spruce-wood (Picea abies Karst.). A literature survey and pilot research (In German). Albert-Ludwigs-University, Forest Sciences, Freiburg i.Br. 18. Zürcher, E., 2003. Trocknungs- und Witterungsverhalten von mondphasen-gefàlltem Fichtenholz (Picea abies Karst.). Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen (in press). 19.Seeling, U., 2000. Ausgewählte Eigenschaften der Fichte (Picea abies L.Karst.) in Abhängigkeit vom Zeitpunkt der Fällung. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Forstwesen, 151(11), 451-458. 20. Vreede, E., 1996. Geschichte und Phänomene der Astronomie. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. 21. Flückiger, H. & Baumgartner, S., 2002. Formveränderungen reifender Mistelbeeren. Elemente der Naturwissenschaften, 77(2/2002), 2-15. 22. Edwards, L., 1993. The Vortex of Life - Nature’ s patterns in space and time. Floris Books, dinburgh. 23. Morgan, E., 2001. The Moon and Life on Earth. Earth, Moon and Planets, 85-86, 279-290. 24. Strestik, J., Sitar, J., Predeanu, I. & Botezat-Antonescu, L., 2001. Variations in the mortality with respect to lunar phases. Earth, Moon and Planets, 85-86, 567-572.

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Status and potential educational role of Arboreta in Italy Sanesi G., COLANINNO B., Pace B., Lafortezza R., University of Bari, Italy Abstract

“ Arboreta”are a collection mainly constituted by tree species. Since the beginning, Arboreta tried to fulfill two main goals: 1) to study the adaptation of tree species in different environmental conditions; 2) to estimate their growing rate, both for economic and aesthetic aim. The Italian Arboreta are well known for their great historical and cultural value, but quite unknown for their attitude to educate people. Today, Arboreta have different orientations. Specifically, Italian Arboreta are now requested not only to provide scientific and economic functions, but also to promote biodiversity conservation, historical and cultural requalification and environmental education. The object of this study is to verify the status and the potential educational role of Italian Arboreta. The public is the protagonist in the sustainable development and therefore Arboreta are determinant to educate and to inform people on environmental themes, on the action of the urban foresters inside and outside the city, and on the historical landscape of their region. In this study, we have analyzed 5 Arboreta located in the Central and Northern part of Italy. Among these, only Arboretum Taurinense (1920) is in a urban context, while Arboreta of Vallombrosa (1869), Arboretum of Badia Prataglia (1870), Arboretum of Arco (1872) and Arboretum Appenninicum (1990) occur in a forestry context. Today, Arboreta activities for the public are in brief courses and guided tours. The qualitative and quantitative improvement of Arboreta and their didactic activities are necessary. Yet there are positive signals like the Parco North of Milan, where a new arboretum is being developed.

Introduction Arboreta are arboreal collections that may be autonomous or annexed to botanical garden. In Italy, their historical origin is, generally, attributed to botanical gardens developed during the XVI century. In the Renaissance, the scientific research and specifically the need to describe herbaceous and arboreal species led to the creation of specialized gardens. These gardens were normally divided into geometric compartments, where plants were sowed and transplanted according to the taxonomy and to the age. Like botanical gardens, arboreta were primarily used to augment the knowledge of botany, pharmacy and agronomy; for these reasons they were bound to universities and academic institutions. The botanical gardens of Pisa (1544), Padua (1545), Rome (1566) and Bologna (1567) are the more ancient. At that time, this kind of “ invention”had a great impact on the scientific community, thus promoting the development of new arboreta annexed to the more prestigious universities. In the XVIII century, new species coming from the colonized lands were introduced into the Italian botanical gardens and arboreta. The Enlightenment’ s spirits and the begin of scientific and cultural institutions, as the Academy of Georgofili (1753), promoted the creation of new botanical gardens and the restoration of those developed in the previous years. This interest in the study of plants and trees grew until the first part of the XX century, when new botanical gardens and dendrological collections were realized. In the last part of the XX century, the dendrological aspect became relevant mainly for the analysis of the trees’shape and for the ornamental characters of species coming from America and Oceania. Currently, in Italy there are several botanic collections which have a great impact on the scientific research community, but also in the education framework of local communities both inside and outside urban area.

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The diffusion of arboreta and dendrological collections in Italy Today, the large part of arboreta and dendrological collections annexed to botanical gardens occur in a context that is different from the original one; furthermore, the original purpose of arboreta has been changed. The existence of arboreta is quite unknown to most people in Italy and botanists, foresters and agronomists have some problems in getting information on arboreta or to visit these collections. Starting from this situation, this study is aimed to explore and emphasize the educational potentialities of the Italian arboreta and dendrological collections. Besides this goal, we attempt to outline some critical guidelines for the restoration and the development of arboreta, in accordance with the requirements of local communities and with the sustainable development paradigm. The methodology adopted in the study consists in the review of the Italian arboreta and botanical gardens in which arboreal collections occur. The study started reviewing traditional bibliography and articles as well as on-line material available for some Arboreta. A valuable contribution to the study has been ensured from the research group called “ Horti” , (belonging to the Italian Botanical Society). Such a group coordinates the activities of more than 70 botanical gardens, arboreta and thematic gardens throughout Italy. From the analysis carried out, it results that in Italy there are currently six arboreta localized in the central and in the northern part and specifically in: Tuscany, with Arboreta of “ Vallombrosa” , the Arboretum of “ Cascine”(Florence) and the Arboretum “ Carlo Siemoni”(Arezzo); Trentino Alto-Adige with the Arboretum of Arco (Trento); Piedmont with the Arboretum Taurinense of Turin; Le Marche with the Arboretum Appenninicum of Tuseggia (Macerata) (Fig.1). In Italy there are other arboreta as part of botanical gardens; some of them are situated in a urban context with an explicit functionality in terms of educational and social participation. Their distribution in the national territory is mainly related to universities and research centres.

Figure 1: Representation of the distribution of the Arboreta in Italy. Legend: Arboreta and Sylvo-museum di Vallombrosa , Arboretum Carlo Siemoni of Badia Prataglia ,Arboretum Appenninicum , Arboretum of Arco ,Arboretum Taurinense ,Arboretum of the Cascine

Botanical gardens with dendrological collections

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The Dendrological patrimony of arboreal collections

The dendrological patrimony of arboreal collections is rich and various for many aspects as: 1) taxonomic diversity; 2) chronological diversity of collected exemplars; 3) climatic, environmental and geographic diversity (Tab. 1, Tab. 2). Referring to the first aspect, it is important to emphasise that Arboreta of Vallombrosa collects over 1200 arboreal and shrub species, while the other arboreal collections have a number of species comprised between 100 and 5002. The chronological diversity of the collected exemplars is more various and for a given species it is possible to find exemplars planted between the XVII and XX century. The climatic, environmental and geographic diversity is more evident in several collections. We can find the typical situations of thermo- and meso- Mediterranean zones (Quezel, 1985), in arboreta of botanical gardens of Palermo, Messina, Catania, Bari and Naples, and sub zones of the medium European region (Pignatti, 1980) when considering the arboreta of Vallombrosa, Bergamo, Milan and Turin. This patrimony is more various, but it is characterized by the fragmentation of the collections which reveal an extension of no more than 1 ha. The number of species collected does not exceed 100.3

THE MAIN COLLECTIONS Arboreta of Vallombrosa are the most important Italian collections in terms of number of species, extension, continuity of the study carried out and of accessibility. These arboreta were developed in 1869, mainly for educational and research activities of the “ Regio Istituto Superiore Forestale” . The original project was widened, becoming a set of arboreta reflecting the history of forestry culture in Italy. By visiting these arboreta one can perceive the evolution of the Italian sylviculture and dendrology. The collection covers an extension of 9 ha and it is composed by over 1000 exemplars and over 1200 species belonging to the phytoclimatic zones of Castenum, Fagetum and Picetum. These Arboreta are managed by the ISSA (Istituto Sperimentale per la Selvicoltura di Arezzo). Actually, the Arboreta of Vallombrosa have both didactic-pedagogic and conservation objectives. The first objective is directed primarily to schools, universities and people; the second one is directed to the protection and enhancement of the forest patrimony, through the conservation of endangered species. Near these arboreta, occurs the arboretum “ Carlo Siemoni”of Badia Prataglia. This collection was a part of the park of Lorena’ s villa and it was founded in 1870. Afterward, it was transformed and widened by Carlo Siemoni and other scientists in order to collect exotic species, together with native forestry species and to obtain qualitative and quantitative superior growth. Today, the collection is composed by 110 species. There is also a museum called “ Carlo Siemoni”and a dendrological collection. The arboretum of the Cascine is in the centre of Florence, but it is in precarious conditions. It has an extension of 2.2 ha, with 175 taxa (since 1997). It was founded in 1914, to improve the capacity of acclimatization of exotic species; it was abandoned during the world-war. Today, it is in the military complex of “ Scuola di Guerra Aerea dell’ Aeronautica Militare” . In 1994, there was the reclassification of the residual plants. The original objective of this arboretum has been changed consistently, but it conserves a key role in the scientific community due to the presence of rare species and for its urban localisation. Moreover, it can give important suggestions on the selection of species for urban forestry projects. The Arboretum Taurinense is important for the urban context. This installation is located in an area of 30 ha, acquired by the town council of Turin in 1920. The Arboretum was developed as As reference, in a city as Florence, the arboreal species are few tens, and the species of shrubs and trees, presented also as a singular exemplar, are not more 250. 3 In the North of America and in other European contexts, the arboreta have an extension that vary from tens to hundreds of hectares. 2

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“ Park of Remembrance” , with dendrological, aesthetic, economic and cultural objectives. The collection consists of approximately 400 species, coming from all continents, with particular attention to the native wood-species of Piedmont’ s region. Its organisation has been conditioned by the soil characteristics. Indeed, the system used allows species to find the better conditions (Pavari, 1954). The Arboretum of Arco (1994) derives from a part of an ancient park of a villa of Archduke of Austria created in the 1872. In the 1964, the residual area of the ancient park was restored as arboretum and patches of natural landscapes were recreated. The collection consists of 150 species: trees and shrubs native of the Mediterranean region, officinal, ornamental and exotic plants. The main regions of provenience are south and central Europe, East Asia, America, Africa and Australia. Moreover, in the arboretum there are signboards on botanical information and on scientific research. The direction of the arboretum organises visits for schools and interested people. The Arboretum Appenninicum is a recent installation (1990) of the University of Camerino. It is aimed to conserve the flora of Apennines and of similar climatic zones. It covers an extension of 10 ha. It is located in the rural landscape as a result of the anthropic action on the “ Downy Oak”( Quercus pubescence Willd). This Arboretum is divided into different sections according to the exposition, the soil humidity and the vegetation. It has a complementary role with the botanical garden of the University of Camerino both in research and didactic activities. Among the arboreal collections located in historical botanical gardens, we can remember the botanical garden of the University of Turin (1729), with an arboretum of 500 species; the of botanical garden of University of Pavia (1773), in which exotic north Italian species are collected; the botanical garden of the University of Modena and of Reggio Emilia (1758), with an arboretum constituted by exotic and Italian species with 200 taxa; the botanical garden of Lucca (1820), whose arboretum is aimed to the conservation of endangered species of Lucca’ s territory4; the botanical garden of the University of Pisa (1545), with its original installation of the XIX century having didactic and simulative objectives; the botanical garden of the University of Naples (1807). Very important are also the arboreal collections occurring in the botanical garden of the University of Messina, with tropical and subtropical species and in the botanical garden of the University of Ferrara (1771), which comprises an arboretum divided in three main parts, and in the botanical garden of the University of Perugia (1768), with an arboretum that contains some species of the central Apennine, with examples of symbiosis. In Italy there are many other botanical gardens containing in their collections arboreal species or exemplar since the age of the foundation. There are other thematic gardens, with ecological or systemic organizations, as the botanical garden “ Lorenzo Rota”(1972) of Bergamo (aimed to the restoration and enhancement of native natural environments), the botanical garden of “ Brera”of the University of Milan, the University of Bologna (1568), the Garden of “ Semplici” (1546) of the University of Florence (with plants of the XVIII century), the Mediterranean botanical garden (2000) of Livorno (which contains many Mediterranean associations), the botanical garden of the University of Catania (founded in the 1858, closed in the ancient structure from the urban development). It is also important to mention the botanical garden of University of Parma (1770), with plants of the XVIII century, botanical gardens of the “ La Sapienza”of Rome (1668), that the University of Palermo (1779) and University of Bari (1955).

The role of arboreta in the environmental education

This first survey on the Italian arboreal collections has emphasized a various and articulated situation, which underlines the importance of these collections not only from the forestry and botanical point of view. These installations testify the great climatic, historic and cultural variability that has always characterized the Italian territory. The parks of rural villas of the area of Lucca are important for the historical aspect. In fact there are installations from XVI, XVII, XVIII and XIX century. and collection of botanical rarity (Chiostri, 1982). 4

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The collections have been conceived to exert educative, environmental and didactic functions, but today all these functions have been exploited and realized only in a little part. Different institutions that manage the collections join in the conversation with the public in fragmented and difficult manner, privileging a relation with experts of the sector, also in the XXI century. The diffusion of the divulgative material through web pages and the organization of visits to collections are not attractive for people without botanic and biological knowledge. Today arboreta can have also, an important role in conservation and protection of landscapes that had characterized for centuries the national territory. In particular, we refer to those hydraulic agrarian settlements that actually have been abandoned and not conserved properly (Méteailié, 2002, Cazzola, 2002, ARSIA - Regione Toscana, 2002). Whereas this type of agrarian economy is nonexistent, the cultural landscape seems to be poor. Arboreta can represent a real historic memory, because representing a part of phytocenosis and/or land use that is disappeared. This potential educational role offered from arboreta is similar to what is currently offered from eco-museums: “ cultural institutions that ensure the function of research, conservation and enhancement of the cultural and environmental richness, that represent the way life change in the time, in permanent manner, in a particular territory with the participation of people ”(Off. def. statute of French eco-museums, in Bestetti, 2000). In this sense, there is something new in Italy. For example, in Tuscany, the foundation of the Sylvo-museum of Vallombrosa has already been established. This eco-museum will be realized near to the Vallombrosa’ s arboreta (before described) to provide information on sylviculture and forest management and, at the same time, to preserve the historical, cultural, aesthetic and environmental aspects of Vallombrosa (Ciancio O., Nocentini S., 2000). In the regional botanical gardens of Lombard, thanks to the D.G.R. of the 20.12.2002 n.7/II 643 of the Region Lombard, it has been created a figure responsible for the educative services. Moreover, it has been started an initiative to disseminate at regional level the didactic method experimented in international botanic gardens together with activities involving people coming from the Region, the “ Società Botanica Italiana”–research group Horti and from the National Association of Scientific Museums. Didactic and educative roles would be primary in urban arboreta and arboreal collections, where an explanation of the effects of pollutants on plants and urban ecosystems would be given to visitors.

CONCLUSION The patrimony of the Italian dendrological collections is fragmented but it has great potentialities, in particular in the educational framework. Currently, few initiatives have been undertaken, but there are some regional proposals that appear to be interesting. This type of activities (sylvo-museum and responsible for the educative service in botanical gardens) are insufficient to satisfy the need of services for people concerned of the environmental and cultural heritage. The communication is an essential factor to be considered, but it was quite inadequate in the dendrological collections analysed .The foundation of centres for the didactic and environmental education would be a secure financial resource needed also to support the “ institutional”scientific aims. This type of initiatives would favour the involvement of the population, in particularly the urban population, also promoting a major awareness on environmental themes on which, more frequently, is called to express an opinion. Arboreta would be an important bridge between the academic and scientific world, urban foresters and the population. Citizens usually express gratitude for the opening of these museums and appreciate their own historic and cultural memory. Arboreta, can give a complete answer to this new question, containing “ practice and theory” , that is the gain of scientific knowledge and the way to disseminate it. Another important passage for the valorization of this unknown patrimony must be the adjournment of information on the collections and their diffusion via internet.

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Arboreta

Arboreta of Vallombros a Arboretum Carlo Siemoni

Age of foundatio n

Area (ha)

Numbe r of species

Propert y

Web page **

Manageme nt

Localiz ation

Aims E

Res

R

Ed

D

SC

Bio D

1869

9

1200+

public

C

ISSA

extraur ban

X

X

1870

n.a..

110

public

B

ISSA

extraur ban

X

X

Arboretum of Cascine

1914

2,2

197

public

Abse nt

ISSA

urban

X

X

Arboretum of Arco

1872

circa 1

150

public

A

Municipalit y of Trento and Museum Tridentino

extraur ban

X

Arboretum Taurinense

1920

30**

400

public

Abse nt

n.a.

urban

X

X

X

X

Arboretum Appenninic um

1990

10

n.a.

public

C

University of Camerino

extraur ban

X

X

X

X

Bio D

Es

Es

Env

X X

X

X

X

Table 1: Summary of arboreta, in Italy: characteristics and aims. Botanic garden with Arboreta

Age of foun d.

are a (H a)

Numbe r of specie s*

Proper ty

Web page **

Manager

Localizat ion

Aims

E Botanic garden of University of Turin Botanic garden of University of Pavia Botanic garden of University of Naples Botanic garden of University of Perugia Botanic garden of University of Modena e Reggio Emilia Botanic garden of University of Ferrara Botanic garden of University of Messina Botanic garden of University of Lucca Botanic garden of University of Pisa

Re s

R

Ed

D

SC

1729

2,6

3000

public

A

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

1723

3

n.a.

public

B

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1807

12

10.000

public

A

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1768

2

3000

public

B

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1758

1

200++

public

A

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1771

4,5

700

public

A

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1638

0,8

n.a.

public

C

Universi ty

Urban

X

X

X

1820

2

n.a.

public

B

Municipa lty

Urban

X

X

X

1544

3

n.a.

public

B

Universi ty

Urban

En v

X

Table 2: Summary of gardens with arboreal collections in Italy: characteristics and aims. Legend of Web page: From the review of the information, we have characterize a qualitative and quantitative classification of the web pages, based on the structure of the pages, richness of contents, particulars of the information and on the facility of interpretation of the site. The classifications had three classes: A: web page organized, up to date, easy to read and detailed; B: structure of the site under construction and /or contents not consistent C: structure of the web pages in its initial phase without particular contents Legend of aims: E: economic; Res: scientific research; R: recreative; D: didactic; Ed: educative actions; S.C.: cultural, social and historical valorization; BioD.: valorization of the biodiversity; Es.: aesthetic; Env. environmental. n.a. not available. + number of species of the arboretum ++ number of arboreal and shrub species of the arboretum ; * number of herbaceous and arboreal species collect in botanical gardens; ** area of the Arboretum Taurinense and park of Maddalena

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REFERENCES ARSIA - Regione Toscana, 2002, Il Paesaggio agro –forestale toscano, Effeemme Lito srl, Firenze. Bestetti E., 2002, Gli spazi verdi tra scala urbana e scala metropolitana. Un’ ipotesi di ecomuseo per il territorio bolognese. In Gaddoni S. (a cura di), Spazi verdi e paesaggio urbano, Patron Editore, Bologna. Caizzi M., Dossena M., 2000, Un ecomuseo per un nuovo paesaggio. Genio Rurale n.1: 49-62 Cazzola F., 2002, Geometrie dei campi: piantate di alberi e agricoltura promiscua nel paesaggio della pianura del Po (secoli XV-XX). International Conference “ Analysis and management of Forest and Rural landscapes” , Firenze, 12-15 settembre. Chiostri F. 1982, Parchi della Toscana . Sagep Editrice. Ciancio O., 2000, Il Silvomuseo di Vallombrosa: un incontro tra passato, presente e futuro, L’ Italia forestale e montana, n.6:353-354. Ciancio O., Susanna N., 2000, Perché un Silvomuseo a Vallombrosa, L’ Italia forestale e montana, n.6:397-408. Cusinato A., 2000, Questione ambientale e azione collettiva: una prospettiva istituzionalista. In Reho M. (ed) Valutazione e decisione per uno sviluppo sostenibile, pp.9-35. Ferrini F., 2001, Il triangolo dei giardini, Acer n. 5: 90-91 La Marca O., et al., 1996, Aspetti metodologici nel piano di gestione del Parco della Maddalena, Arboretum Taurinense di Torino, Annali dell’ Accademia delle Scienze Forestali, XLV: 189-211. Méteailié J.P., 2002, Fire practices and pastoral management in the French Pyrénées. Maintaining landscape in rural abandonment context. International Conference “ Analysis and management of Forest and Rural landscapes” , Firenze, 12-15 settembre. Moggi G., Falciani L., Luccioli E., 1991, Guida Botanica al Parco Bibbiani, Museo Botanico dell’ Università di Firenze Pavari A., 1954, Un importante centro di studi dendrologici: l’ Arboretum Taurinense, Monti e Boschi, agosto(V):339-349. Pavone P., 1983, Guida alla visita dell’ Orto Botanico, Coperativa Universitaria Libraria Catanese, Catania. Pignatti S., 1998, I boschi d’ Italia, Utet, Torino. Regione Toscana, 1990, Guida agli Orti Botanici della Toscana, pubblicazione a cura del Dipartimento Istruzione e Cultura della Regione Toscana Quezel P., 1985, Definition of the Mediterranean region and the origins of hits flora, in GomezCampo C.L., Plant conservation in the Mediterranean area, Junk, le Hague, p. 9-24. Websites Arboreto “ Carlo Siemoni”di Badia Prataglia: http://www.badiaprataglia.com Arboreto d’ Arco: http://www.mtsn.tn.it/sedi/arco/arco.html Autorità di Bacino fiume Po, Linee generali di assetto idrogeologico e quadro degli interventi sull’ asta del PO (nel tratto di confluenza Tanaro-Delta): http://www.adbpo.it/piano/Pai/ProgettoPai/03%20Interventi/01.Po/Po2.pdf Civico Orto Botanico di Trieste: http://rtcts/cultura/musei/scientifici/cotanico/botaframe.html Corpo Forestale dello Stato: http://www.corpoforestale.it Evangelisti F., 1994, La pianura bolognese: elementi per un'analisi del paesaggio, materiale grigio: http://www.provincia.bologna.it/ambiente/parchi/paesaggio/scheda14.html

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Giardino Botanico “ Le Viotte di Monte Bondone” : http://www.mtsn.tn.it/sedi/viotte/viotte.html Giardino Botanico di Monaco: http://www.botanik.biologie.uni-muenchen.de/ botgart/i/default.html HORTI: http://www.unimo.it/ortobot/horti/CD/Testiita/obsbi_home1.htm Istituto Sperimentale per la Selvicoltura di Arezzo: http://www.selvicoltura.org/ default.htm L’ Orto Botanico dell’ Università “ La Sapienza”di Roma: http://www.ips.it/musis/muort_f0. html L’ orto Botanico di Bergamo: http://www.cyberg.it/ortobotanico/storia.html L’ Orto Botanico di Padova: http://www.insieme.it/impegno/siti2/patrumnai21(orto%20padova) .htm L’ Orto Botanico di Pisa: http://www.unimo.it/ortobot/horti/CD/Pisa/Pisahome.html Orto Botanico “ Giardino dei Semplici”dell’ Università di Firenze: http://www.unifi.it/unif/msn /main_it.html Orto Botanico Comunale di Lucca: http://www.comune.lucca.it/ORTO/botanico.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università della Calabria: http://vnt.sede.enea.it/~campus/EneaCampus/ scienza/col010.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università della Tuscia di Viterbo http://www.unitus.it/strutture/ ortobotanico/t162i.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università della Tuscia: http://www.unitus.it/strutture/ortobotanico/t162i.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Ancona: http://www.unian.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Bari: http://www.uniba.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Bologna: http://csmail.alma.unibo.it/musuni/ortobota/ ortobota.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Cagliari: http://www.didael.it/ortobot/universi/ orti/cagliari.htm Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Camerino: http://web.unicam.it/botanica/OrtoBotanico/ IndexOrto.htm Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Catania: http://www.dipbot.unict.it/orto/orto.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Ferrara: http://www.unife.it/ortobot/index.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Genova: http://www.unige.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Lecce: http://siba2.unile.it/sedi/orto.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Messina: http://www.unime.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Napoli: http://www.cib.na.cnr.it/remuna/ortobo/indice.html Orto Botanico Didattico Sperimentale dell’ Università di Milano: www.unimi.it Orto Botanico di Brera dell’ Università di Milano: www.unimi.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Palermo: http://www.unipa.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Parma: http://www.unipr.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Pavia: http://www.unipv.it/didaricerca/facoltà/MMFFNN/ sciebio/orto.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Perugia: http://www.unipg.it/camso1 Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Sassari: http://www.uniss.it Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Siena: http://www.unisi.it/dipart/diba/orto/i_ob.html Orto Botanico dell’ Università di Torino: http://www.comune.torino.it/turismo/curiosit/ curbot.htm Orto Botanico delle Alpi Apuane “ P. Pellegrini” : http://www.comune.massa.ms.it/ schede/05020006.html Orto Botanico Locatelli: http://www.gpnet.it/savio/ortomes/locitro.html Orto Botanico Paradiso, Chiavenna: http://www.vlachiavenna.com/territorio/paradisom.html Orto Botanico Regionale in Val Predina: http://www.geocities.com/valpredina Orto Botanico Sperimentale “ G.E. Ghirardi”Toscolano Maderno: http://www.unimi.it/ateneo/strutt/dipart/biodip/bodip4.html Orto Botanico Università di e Reggio Emilia: http://www.unimo.it/ortobot/start.htm Parco Nord di Milano: http://www.parconord.milano.it Regione Emilia - Romagna, Sevizio Parchi e riserve: http://www.regione.emiliaromagna.it/parchi/fauna/mammi.htm Rinaldi A., 1995, Alcune considerazioni sulla Storia del paesaggio agrario emiliano, Studi Storici 1(36) gennaio-marzo: http://www.mclink.it/com/liberliber/biblioteca/html/riviste/studist/1995/n1/1995109a.htm

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The pros and cons of Distance Learning as a viable means of developing the culture of life-long-learning for urban foresters. Alan SIMSON, Leeds Metropolitan University, United Kingdom [email protected]

Abstract The “ profession”of urban forestry is raising its profile across Europe. It is expanding its knowledge base, acquiring new skills and increasingly adopting a proactive role in the debates surrounding urban liveability, regeneration and sustainability. However, such a higher profile can be a two-edged sword. Although urban foresters could be deemed to be the “ new kids on the block”professionally speaking, they cannot escape the increasing public and political scrutiny that is “ enjoyed”by other professionals regarding competence, accountability, proof of up-to-date knowledge, conversance with current good practice and the general drive to improve the level of qualification. There will therefore be an increasing demand from the profession for support from Higher Education in promoting a culture of life-long learning by offering flexible educative programmes for busy professionals. Whilst there are full and part-time courses available in some countries across Europe, such courses in urban forestry are not widely available. It would seem logical therefore to develop distant learning packages to meet this potential demand for life-long learning from the urban forestry profession. This paper will consider the merits of developing such programmes, drawing on the experience of other sister professions in the built environment, and will suggest that whilst distance learning undoubtedly offers both students and professionals the chance to study at their own pace, and at a time suitable to themselves, it is perceived by some academics to be a sterile learning environment. The paper will conclude by considering what improvements might be required in order to make distant learning a viable option for the urban forestry profession to pursue. Key words: urban forestry, education, professional competence, distant learning, life-long learning

1 Introduction Without a doubt, the “ profession”of urban forestry is raising its profile across Europe. Unfortunately, such profile raising is not a smooth curve. It goes in fits and starts and there is still a very great deal of work to be done in engaging and communicating with our fellow professionals, with the general public and not least with the policy and decision-makers in our respective countries. We can be proud however that we are raising our profile, and we are achieving this by expanding our knowledge base, by acquiring new skills and by increasingly adopting a proactive role in the debates surrounding urban liveability, regeneration and sustainability. Such a higher profile can be a two-edged sword however. Although urban foresters could be deemed to the “ new kids on the block”in terms of the planning, design and development professions, this does not absolve us from the increasing public and political scrutiny that in “ enjoyed”by our sister professions. There is a constant need to prove competence, accountability, the acquisition of up-to-date knowledge and conversance with good practice, as well as maintain the general drive to improve the level of qualifications of our practitioners, and maybe our researchers and academics too. We need to think carefully however about how we move forward in terms of education, and thus how we start taking the next steps up the professional ladder.

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It is of vital importance that urban forestry takes this step-change upward in professional recognition; our expertise is badly needed. Contemporary urban planning and design theory, certainly in North-West Europe, all too often proceeds on the basis that there is a predetermined set of norms that urban development in the post-industrial city should conform with, be it for example the Italian hill top village model, or the medieval walled town idea (either real or imagined), or adopting a version of the Mediterranean promenading culture into the public realm of our towns and cities. Where urban green space does occur, it is either on the one hand extremely ornamental, or more commonly it is at the other end of the spectrum and pseudonaturalistic. We are still labouring under the well-meaning but out-dated assertion of Frederick Law Olmsted that all green space within cities should be “ naturalistic” , so that the poor urban dweller can have his or her own bit of the rural countryside close to their doorstep Clearly this is not so in the 21st century; post-industrial cities are still evolving –they are only 200 years old at best –and we know not where they will end up (Nicholson-Lord, 2003). What we do know is that they will almost certainly be different than we see today, and will not conform to previous ideas of what urban areas are about. That is where the profession of urban forestry comes into the equation. We need to be at the top table, where all the key decisions are made, to influence this future development. We need to be au fait with all the methodologies of public and community participation, so that the general public can genuinely participate in the process, and we need to be accepted as competent professionals on par with architects, urban designers, planners and the like. In short, urban foresters need to continue to improve their professional profile and move further up the professional ladder.

2 The culture of life-long learning If we are to improve our professional profile, the profession will have to increasingly demand support and assistance from Higher Education institutions in promoting a culture of life-long learning throughout urban forestry by offering flexible educative programmes for busy professionals. Whilst there are some full-time and a few part-time courses offering aspects of urban forestry available in some countries across Europe, the Educational Survey carried out by the EU’ s COST Action E12 (Randrup et al., 2001) established that such courses were not widely available. This was the first survey of its kind to be carried out into urban forestry education in Europe. Since the publication of that survey, several new Masters courses that either specifically focus on urban forestry or include urban forestry within the curriculum have been validated in several countries, including the UK. This is fine for potential full-time or even part-time students, but what about the busy professional who can only make a small amount of time available for increasing or up-dating knowledge, and who is unable or unwilling to return to full-time or parttime university education? In these circumstances, it would seem a logical step to take to develop distant learning packages or computer-aided learning (CAL) to cater for the up-dating of these experienced professionals. A logical step perhaps, and an important one professionally, but it might be wise to exercise a little caution first, and ascertain what distant learning models currently exist for us to evaluate, and who else, professionally speaking, is in a similar situation to ourselves? Clearly the longestablished professions of architecture, planning, landscape architecture, urban design, quantity surveying and similar are unlikely to be particularly helpful. They tend to have established a standard educational format for their young professionals by accrediting either full or part-time courses to bachelor’ s degree or masters level degree and beyond, and they keep their qualified professionals up to the mark by demanding that a minimum number of hours be spent annually on compulsory continuing professional development (CPD). Some assistance may be forthcoming from that source, in that urban foresters should always be encouraged to

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successfully complete CPD courses put on by what might be termed “ non-tree”professions. We can learn much that way, and develop the networks that are so important to modern professional working. However, the profession that seems to be the nearest to urban forestry in terms of the demands it makes of life-long learning in its professional development is the construction industry. Although much bigger in terms of economic turn-over of course, there are definite parallels with the urban forestry profession. For example, the construction industry has, like urban forestry, traditionally called upon a wide range of skills and activities, some educated to degree level and some not. It often employs small, specialist companies or self-employed individuals and it does not always enjoy a great reputation for its ability to act in concert or pull together in the same direction. It is also facing radical changes in the demands being made upon it by the market place, its sister professions and the need to improve its ability to engage with society in general. Such a description could well be applied to urban forestry at the beginning of the 21st century. It is interesting to note that a Construction Industry Training Board report entitled “ Managing Profitable Construction”(CITB 2000) stated that construction companies which possess higher order skills “ make more money, complete more projects on time and have more satisfied clients” . This point of view has been widely accepted not only by leading construction companies and the UK government, but also by government supported initiatives such as the University for Industry, the Investors in People standard and by Higher Education Institutions. It has been claimed that “ necessity is the mother of invention” . It is of little wonder therefore that there has been a general acceptance throughout the construction industry of the need to update skills through in-company training and development programmes, continuous professional development activities and further studies leading to an increase in both base and advanced academic qualifications. This has resulted in a significant increase of interest in lifelong learning, and many universities, including my own, have responded to this call. During the latter half of the 1990s, there was a significant growth in the provision of courses, particularly but not solely post-graduate courses, that attempted to embrace the radical changes that were occurring in the construction industry, whilst at the same time trying to accommodate the needs of the busy professional to access this information. Thus there has been a need to develop innovative approaches to the delivery of education and training programmes in the built environment, and it has been assumed that the trend has been to develop distance learning, computer-aided learning and supported self-study as the ideal modes of study to cater for this demand. Is this the case, and if so, how successful have they been and are they a suitable model for urban forestry to emulate? If not, what direction should we consider as an alternative? Research carried out by Ellis et al. (2002) has provided us with some of the answers, and there are some useful pointers here for urban forestry. Ellis et al. (2002) looked at 129 separate courses in the UK associated with providing updated skills for the construction industry. Generally, the courses were small, with over half of them having fewer than 25 students. In addition, they were relatively new, the majority of the courses having been established between 1996 and 2001. Part-time attendance was the most common mode, either as an option or as the sole delivery mode (79 %), with full-time mode only being slightly less popular being offered on 73 % of the courses. In marked contrast, distance learning was only found to be offered on 14 % of the courses, with open learning format, defined by Bates (1995) as a mix of independent study and face-to-face teaching, being offered on only 4 % of the courses. If there is a critical need for professionals in the construction industry to engage with the radical changes occurring in that industry, and thus a comparable need to accommodate the needs of busy professionals by offering flexible modes of course delivery, why is there such a marked reluctance for universities to market distance learning or

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computer-aided learning courses? Is there a warning sign for urban forestry here? Well, yes, there is.

3 Problems with distant learning Employers and some academics generally perceive that distance learning provides benefits for students over the more normal part-time mode. A student, for example, can study at his/her own pace, and at a time to suit themselves, thus arguably making learning easier and perhaps quicker. In addition, it avoids the need to travel to the host institution and generally provides the student with suitable quality material for learning, reference and revision. Interestingly, Ellis et al. (2002) found that these perceptions were open to question. Academics who ran such courses concluded that students did not learn more, nor did they learn more quickly, nor did they retain more knowledge that their part-time mode colleagues. It may be of course that the sample taken by Ellis et al. was too small, but even so, it does suggest that there are some disadvantages of distant learning, which we in urban forestry may need to consider. Broadly speaking, these fall into two categories –resources and pedagogy. The resources issue is easy, so let’ s take that first. Put simply, it costs money to design, write and produce high quality learning material. Thus start-up costs are high, and there also has to be an on-going financial commitment to the regular up-dating of the learning material if it is to remain at the cutting edge of contemporary knowledge, which it has to if it is to retain its professional credibility. Efficient administrative support is also a prerequisite for success with putting on such courses, and this can be costly too. Clearly, distance learning is not a cheap alternative to face-to-face delivery. Realistic accounting of the development, maintenance and administrative costs may call into question the whole viability of distance learning schemes. A small profession such as urban forestry is unlikely to generate the critical mass of students that will make the provision of quality, cutting-edge distance learning a viable proposition. Important though the resources issues are, Ellis et al. (2002) found the pedagogic concerns of the academics in the survey to be more significant. They concluded that the inability of students to interact and share experiences, together with a sense of isolation, be it physical or psychological, often led to feelings of “ loneliness”and “ coldness” . The lack of adequate start-up monies for such courses makes it all too easy for the provision of distant learning resources to fall into the obvious pitfall of simply being vast amounts of text-based information (the equivalent of reams of regurgitated lecture notes), which lacks the emotion of personal delivery and thus does not enable the student to prioritise the information, nor for them to get a feel for what is important. In these circumstances, many academics believe that it is very difficult to design distance learning educational programmes that adequately motivate and stimulate students, and provide a spontaneous learning environment. Without this spontaneity, the learning environment becomes boring, poor, static and sterile. Distance learners of necessity require greater levels of self-discipline, commitment and study time to complete a meaningful academic award. Yet a perceived lack of routine, limited opportunity for peer group learning and the resultant inadequacy of feedback mechanisms can hinder the development of complex concepts in a student. This could be a matter of some concern for urban forestry education. Whether one would go so far as one respondent to Ellis et al.’ s survey, when they stated that “ the educational philosophy behind distance learning is wrong”is perhaps a moot point. Certainly the authors concluded that the issues of isolation, a lack of group communication and less momentum in the learning process need to be seriously addressed if distance learning is to succeed in providing the means of enabling professionals to acquire the new skills that are so badly needed to progress in contemporary practice.

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4 Improvements to distance learning for urban forestry We are fortunate in urban forestry in that we can learn from the experience of others who have tackled the problems associated with distant learning before us. Quite obviously, we cannot all regularly return to university to up-date our skills or acquire new ones, even if we wanted to. So what can we do to make our version of distant learning more successful, bearing in mind that we are a small profession when compared to our colleagues in many of our sister professions? A number of things spring to mind. First, we have to avail ourselves of the continuing professional development programmes of our sister professions, and engage in debate with them on their territory, both in our own countries and abroad. We spend far too much time talking to nodding heads, and that could be deemed to be complacent. We must engage with architects, planners, social scientists, health professionals, city engineers, i.e. anyone who can assist us or who needs to be made aware of what urban forestry is really about. We are lucky, in that we are not limited by professional narrowmindedness as are some professions. We are free agents, and we should behave as such. Secondly, if the start-up and management costs of distant learning are too high for individual institutions to accommodate them, why not share them amongst several institutions and/or companies? This might only be feasible at post-graduate level perhaps, but why not a European Masters / diploma in urban forestry, that can be taken full time or part-time, supplemented with work-place learning or by distance learning? If a residential component is deemed necessary, this could be more easily facilitated if a number of institutions were involved in a range of different countries. Several potential host institutions and companies spring to mind, some of them represented at this European Forum on Urban Forestry. If we believe in the value of the shared experience, as this Forum does, this must be a possibility. Thirdly, if we are willing to share development costs, how can we develop distance learning so that it can overcome the pedagogic obstacles and become a viable means by which the complex and creative issues associated with urban forestry can be assimilated? Will technology enable us to properly develop Computer-Aided Learning? This is seemingly little used at present, due mainly to the costs of setting it up, but the integration of virtual or managed learning environments into distance learning courses offers huge potential for promoting an up-dated approach to an open learning format, and thus a more dynamic learning experience. This would enable more of us urban foresters to benefit from accessing this means of acquiring new skills or up-dating our existing ones.

5 Conclusion In conclusion, one thing is inescapable. If urban forestry is to continue to rise up the professional ladder and claim its rightful place at the top table, it has to improve its academic base. It is difficult to see how this can occur without the use of a much-improved system of distance learning, tailored to our bespoke requirements. This will of necessity need the help, backing and assistance of all the profession –academic and practice, both public and private. Being a collective of professions, as urban forestry is, has its advantages, in that like armillaria (perhaps one of the less pathogenic varieties such as gallica?), we can successfully invade all sorts of host professions, receive sustenance and influence them from the inside. The time is coming however, when this will not be enough. Urban forestry will need to acquire a distinct profile in its own right, and the on-going debate on the future evolution of post-industrial urbanism provides us with the ideal opportunity, should we wish to take it. We do have to a bit careful though. In a recent careers’publication in the UK, the well-known director of a London urban forestry company was quoted as saying “ I started out as a drama student, became an acrobat, then went into gardening. When you combine all these things, you get an urban

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forester!”That was certainly true for her, and it indicates the wonderful maverick side of urban forestry, which must not be lost. But somehow we have to retain that individuality and meld it with a new professionalism that will put urban forestry firmly on the map as a viable profession in its own right, and on par with our sister professions in the built environment. The adoption by urban foresters of a culture of life-long learning is crucial in this quest, and the development of attractive, educationally-dynamic distant learning packages is probably the only viable way of achieving this.

References Bates, A.W. 1995. Technology, open learning and distance education. Routledge. London. CITB 2000. Managing profitable construction: the skills profile. Construction Industry Training Board research, July 2000. Ellis, R.C.T., Thorpe, A. and Wood, G.D. 2003. Distance learning and postgraduate education in the built environment. Proceedings of the CIB W89 International Conference on Building Education & Research, University of Salford. Nicholson-Lord, D. 2003. Green cities; and why we need them. New Economics Foundation, London. Randrup, T.B., Konijnendijk, C.C. and Andersen, F. 2001. Review of higher education on urban forests and urban trees in Europe. Report of COST Action E12 ‘ Urban Forests & Trees’ . Office for Official Publication of the European Communities, Luxembourg.

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FINDINGS OF THE 6TH IUFRO EUROPEAN FORUM ON URBAN FORESTRY (EFUF) Educating the Urban Foresters Clive DAVIES, North East Community Forests, England [email protected]

INTRODUCTION Delegates were welcomed from across Europe, to the 6th IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry held from the 21st –23rd May 2003, at Arnhem, The Netherlands and Flanders, Belgium. Previous forums have been held at:   Wuppertal, Germany, 1998   Aarhus, Denmark, 1999   Budapest, Hungary, 2000   Durham, England, 2001   Trondheim, Norway, 2002 The IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry is a key meeting place for urban forestry practitioners, managers and researchers and fulfils a valuable role in the exchange of information and examples of good practice. Feedback from previous forums has shown that many ideas have been transferred to different countries as a consequence.

THE OPENING MEETING The opening meeting of the 6th IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry reiterated the objectives of the forum as a meeting place for practitioners and researchers for the exchange of urban forestry learning between European countries. The theme adopted for the sixth forum was ‘ educating the urban foresters', a topic with universal application. The topic had been selected by the organisers as urban forestry was increasingly being recognised as a mix of several professional disciplines with specific skill-sets required. Opening presentations were made by Rik De Vreese, Philip van Wassenaer and Thomas Randrup which raised the first key finding:

KEY FINDING 1 - Urban foresters need social science skills as much as (if not more than) natural science skills, especially in regard to conflict management, media handling training, dealing with ‘ interest’groups such as farmers and nature groups. It was agreed that there is a key role for academic institutions to address these key points through their student education programmes. However it was noted that currently there are few degree level courses in the European Union (4 - 5) when compared to North America (40 – 50). It was agreed through discussions that:

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KEY FINDING 2 –Fully qualified urban foresters require a very wide skill set and that this was a too great expectation for undergraduate students. Urban forestry I considered as a specialism and hence requires a master’ s level study. KEY FINDING 3 –However the foundations of urban forestry are multi-disciplinary in nature and people can approach urban forestry study from a number of different bachelor level backgrounds. It was recognised that there were many people currently practicing Urban Forestry, sometimes in positions of significant responsibility, who had accumulated many years of urban forestry expertise through practice. It was agreed that:

KEY FINDING 4 –Accredited prior learning schemes are needed to allow existing urban forest professionals to participate in new post-graduate (master or post graduate certificate) qualification schemes. KEY FINDING 5 –Existing urban forest professionals can provide valuable support to academic institutions, in terms of field work, specialist teaching and construction of courses.

GENERAL FINDINGS FROM DAY ONE A number of educational issues emerged from the first day of the forum. It was recognised that education applies to all levels of participants in urban forestry ranging from farmers to community groups, politicians and urban resource managers including those working for public utility companies and within local government. However professional urban foresters must appreciate that a ‘ little knowledge’amongst stake-holders makes the urban foresters job more complicated.

KEY FINDING 6 – Stakeholders must be offered robust training providing them with all the facts necessary to make informed judgements, for example in terms of visitor management or arboriculture requirements. In the context of urban forests, it was necessary to recognise the highly fragmented nature of urban forests and the extreme recreational pressure on ‘ accessible’urban forests. Research in the Netherlands had shown that an urban forest more than 1km away is not regarded by the community as easy to access and is seen as an ‘ excursion’and used mainly at weekends. Indeed even the 1km distance might be reduced if significant barriers were in the public way, such as major roads. It emerged from research that:

KEY FINDING 7 –Urban forests are more visited than public libraries even though urban forests receive only a small proportion of funding when compared to public libraries. Several times it was emphasised that the urban forester’ s role is managing ‘ people’as much as ‘ trees’ . In the context of this a significant number of delegates felt that the title ‘ community forest(er)’was a more accurate description of our work. It was agreed that a popular and accessible name for an ‘ urban forest’attracts the press, politicians and community. Making the assumption that the presence of a forest in the city’ s footprint was enough to attract attention and resources was mistaken. Indeed:

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KEY FINDING 8 –Urban forests needed a local ‘ brand’name and identity which could be a focus for marketing and community participation. A good example of this was Bossanova the new urban forest for Ghent, Flanders, Belgium. A difficulty for urban foresters is the planning time horizons for urban forests. These plans can take years to develop and implement during which criticism is attracted from nature groups and others who are impatient for action. An open question was posed; when is the best time ‘ to go public’ ? It was agreed that there was no single answer to this, but that:

KEY FINDING 9 –Key stake-holders need to be kept regularly informed of progress in creating (or managing) the urban forest by using tools such as newsletters and public presentations. It is recognised that some people use (and continue to) the terms 'urban forestry' and 'arboriculture' conterminously. However they are distinctly different professions. It is recognised that arboriculture is, however, one of important disciplines within urban forestry. It was agreed that the urban forest by its nature has a seamless link between town and country. However since the ‘ urban fringe’is defragmented this means that ‘ structure planning’is involved in advancing major new schemes hence:

KEY FINDING 10 –A working knowledge/understanding of the planning system is an important part of urban forestry education. In North West Europe (e.g. Belgium, United Kingdom, The Netherlands) - ‘ Forest(ry)’retains bad overtones of commercial exploitation, hence:

KEY FINDING 11 –The use of terminology such as 'park forests' and 'woodland parks', makes the public more comfortable with new afforestation in urban settings in some countries.

FINDINGS OF THE COMMUNICATION AND PUBLIC EDUCATION WORKSHOPS Two workshops were held on the topic of COMMUNICATION & PUBLIC EDUCATION, these were led by Clive Davies (England) and Alan Simson (England). Public issues It was observed through practice that inhabitants of small settlements (e.g. De Pinte –Belgium) were concerned at being ‘ over-run’by urban people taking recreation, in this case inclusion of the village name in the scheme reduced concern by making the Forest appear ‘ inclusive’of village needs. It was noted that three years is not untypical of the amount of time needed in planning a ‘ new’ urban forest and that patience is needed and this fact must be communicated to the public. This echoed Key Finding 9. Some delegates advocated renewed efforts to get the public to wish to use ‘ local’timber and appreciate the forest cycle –seed to saw.

KEY FINDING 12 –It was agreed that the public engage with local issues and not with national strategies –the forest must therefore be relevant to local needs and local views. Arnhem (the Netherlands) & Flanders/Brussels (Belgium), 21st –23rd of May 2003 123/132 www.efuf.org

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The Nature of the urban forest Research in the UK and elsewhere had demonstrated that:

KEY FINDING 13 –Peri-urban areas (also referred to as countryside around towns) are very ‘ specific environments’not entirely urban or rural in their characteristics. Structure planning was encountered in managing or planning these areas but the level of understanding by local government planners was often limited. The urban forester It was felt that urban foresters need to be more sensitive to the ‘ unconscious’aspirations of people who use the forest, such as ‘ spiritual feelings’and the need to be alone or quiet. This generated discussion around the idea of the urban forest as an antidote to modern urban living. There was discussion around the topic of ‘ what are we’and it was agreed that:

KEY FINDING 14 – Urban Foresters are fore most the ‘ managers of cultural landscapes not forests’ and that we had responsibilities to develop ‘ tailor made, bespoke and locally appropriate’forest management solutions. There is no ‘ one model fits all’approach that new practitioners can adopt. This attitude should be reinforced through education programmes so that we avoid the notion of a ‘ common approach’which has become a problem with some professions. It was agreed that urban foresters knowledge and skills must change to reflect increased interest in recreation and nature interests. It was noted that new types of recreational demand must be addressed on the same timescale as public interest is rising. An example of this is the current rise of interest in GPS trekking, with several club sites starting to appear on the internet. It was agreed that the:

KEY FINDING 15 –The skills catalogue for urban foresters include a flexible attitude for ‘ all’forest workers, entrepreneurship, creativity, leadership, integrity of approach and open communications. Three “ facts”emerged from discussion, commonality in the issues facing urban foresters, some variety in the attempts to solve the issues, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing in terms of public attitude to the forest. There is a general distrust of foresters and their ‘ scientific methods’ . The public need an alternative ‘ in your face’approach and we must learn from marketing professionals in this regard. Good practice It was agreed that to assist the spread of good practice and to enable links with academic institutions:

KEY FINDING 16 –Regional ‘ laboratory forests’as ‘ action research centres’and through these highlight examples of good and bad practice should be identified.

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The Community Forest programme in England was suggested as a useful template for these, but in practice examples should be drawn from across Europe. Private forest/agricultural owners

KEY FINDING 17 –Private owners are seen as largely supportive of urban forestry but they are looking for ways of increasing the social values of their forests. As professionals we are finding it hard to advise on this. Clearly private owners are keen to know how to take financial benefits from increased social and recreational values but the mechanisms are poorly developed. It was noted that in Sweden there is a web based on-line resource in development (in Swedish) to help address this. It was noted that users of this service care little if the data is derived from ‘ research’or ‘ practice’ . It was hoped that this resource could be made available in English to enable technology transfer. A schism between farming and forestry exits and is widely perceived as unhelpful. It is observed that agricultural land drops in value when planted as woodland AND the loss of hope value for built development further drives this schism. Fiscal incentives are not seen as attractive in many situations and there are cultural differences between countries and how incentives are perceived. Organisational issues New organisational management ideas could be employed in urban forest organisations to encourage the trickledown (and up) of skills in an organisation. Larger organisations could appoint innovation coordinators to do this. It was noted that major issues arise when moving resources within an organisation from areas of ‘ traditional forest management’to new population centred forestry. Urban forestry education It is clear that there is a raft of new skills needed by urban foresters but if so, the question should be asked, if more needs to be put into urban forestry training what do we leave out?

FINDINGS OF THE EDUCATION OF FORESTERS WORKSHOPS Two workshops were held on the topic of EDUCATION OF FORESTERS, these were led by Hans van Rooijen (the Netherlands) and Cecil Konijnendijk (Denmark). Skill sets Much of the discussions focussed on the skill sets required by urban foresters. It was thought that these are positioned towards:   Personal competencies of ‘ knowledge’ ,‘ skills’ ,‘ personal attitudes’ ,‘ personal characteristics’ .   Understanding that you do not work with forests first but that you work with people first.   That you will, in your career, have to handle many ‘ actors’ranging from private companies to politicians to the public.   A good understanding of the urban eco-system (natural and social).   Strong communication abilities.   Executive abilities as an enabler and facilitator.   Marketing skills.

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  Policy making skills, collaboration and partnering with others.   An urban forester needs an understanding of who are the key actors and how to interact with them. Professional status It was strongly felt that:

KEY FINDING 18 –An urban forest profession had to be estbalished and duly recognised. This should have international foundations and enable properly qualified indiviudals to practice within, at least the European Union area. A starting point for consideration of professional status is to think about the other professions, how do we compare with them and how do we work with them. It was suggested however that we should recognise the heiracy of training and that working within urban forestry was not all about degree level study, there was a key role for non vocational qualifications and a reminder that it’ s not all senior management. Delegates considered the professional status of various positions within urban forestry and an ideal model of qualifications for post-holders: Forest Directors and Forest Managers Specialist Engineers Forest Supervisor Engineer Tree Worker and Forest Worker

Masters degree Post-graduate certificate Advanced level Certificate Certificate

Universities and colleges

KEY FINDING 19 –The central theme for university education of urban forestry training is about urban resource management, a circle of planning, design and management and the skill sets needed for a career in urban forestry (see above). International links and learning together are important components of education and there is evidence already of the exchange of students as a consequence of links made at previous EFUF forums. These links should be encouraged and could be a distinctive element of urban forestry training, hence enhancing its professional status and international employment opportunities. Delegates were clear that universities should set clear educational objectives and programmes and use contemporary interactive tools. Universities should also offer new competences such as in information technology (GIS and virtual reality) and how it can be used in marketing. There was a plea for an internationally recognised certification of the urban forestry officer and that this should operate at all levels not just for bachelor or masters level study. Solution orientated education was advocated along with equal attention in course structures to the social sciences as well as the natural sciences. Team working It was recognised that whilst urban forestry directors or managers may need an urban forestry qualification they would in most cases be working within multi-disciplinary organisations. There was a need to develop team working and team management skills.

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EXCURSION TO THE SONIAN FOREST, BRUSSELS Forum delegates made an excursion to the Sonian Forest (Brussels) to study urban forestry management. Delegates expressed appreciation to the Flemish and Brussels region and the Forestry Education Centre for hosting this visit. Delegates made these observations during the visit:   The high quality museum facility in the forest impressed delegates although some concern was expressed at the establishment and running of such facilities in practice.   The strong focus on ‘ practical training’at the forest museum was an important component of the annual income and expenditure budget. This approach was being used elsewhere to cross-subsidise running costs.   It was noted that due to the political structure of Belgium that inter-regional management is an issue in as there are different policy agendas.   Background noise was always observed during the visit (road and rail) and it was agreed that this is a common feature of most urban forests and reduces the ‘ peace and quiet’ quality of urban forests.   The issue of horse management was raised in connection with the state of some tracks in the forest, which were very ‘ churned up’following heavy rain. Horse managment was seen by delegates as a disproportionately high cost when compared with user numbers.   There are horse racing circuits in the forest which are now little used. There was a lively discussion over whether these were an ecological opportunity for natural regeneration or a social loss if a further public use cannot be found for these circuits.

FINDINGS FROM DAY THREE For the third and final day of the 6th IUFRO European Forum on Urban Forestry delegates were joined by lowland foresters from neighbouring regions. There were three plenary sessions for the day which focused on:   education   communication / changing the attitude   miscellaneous submissions

EDUCATION SESSION The first session of Day Three focused on education issues and was chaired by Johanna From (Sweden). It was noted that politicians want a beautiful forest, with no troubles and low cost! For this to be successful the ecological, economic and participatory functions must be married together into successful urban forest planning. It was noted that whereas there was a great deal of interest in extending woodland cover in some parts of Europe (notably in the North West) elsewhere the issue of urban woodland management was more about increasing the quality of the woodland and its potential to local communities, an example of this is the situation in France.

KEY FINDING 20 –It was agreed that a series of handbooks are needed to assist urban forestry education and become standard reference texts for students, practitioners and managers. The nearest thing to these that existed to these was the Forestry Commission (United Kingdom)

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handbooks. These were however dating but could be revised, extended or utilised as a starting point for new publications. There was a call for a coordinated hierarchy of training accompanied by an EU recognised certification system ranging from forest workers to directors. COMMUNICATION; CHANGING THE ATTITUDE SESSION The second session of Day Three focused on ‘ changing the attitude’ , and was chaired by Alan Simson (England). The main findings of this session related to how we get more people into the forest, which is a key requirement in urbanised society. It was concluded that we needed to get closer to the marketing profession and be prepared to commission marketing professionals to analyse our work and develop our brand and marketing programmes. There were very few examples where urban forestry organisations were employing marketing professionals and this was seen as a significant lack. One technique that attracted interest was the use of ‘ suggestive art’–an example of which was placing a picnic table set with food which over time creates a subliminal expectation to visitors that they can use the forest for that purpose. It was recognised that there is a need to retrain foresters when they are moved from rural to urban situations and that this change can be ‘ painful’to them as individuals as they have for instance to get used to working with volunteers and becoming more of a warden. MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS The third and final session of Day Three focused on miscellaneous submissions and was chaired by Cecil Konijnendijk (Denmark).

KEY FINDING 21 –A system of CPD (continuing professional development) was felt necessary (c.f. landscape architecture profession) along with the need to have membership of a professional body. There was strong support for this from delegates but the question remains unanswered as to whether this should be a new professional body and a new chapter of an existing body. It was noted that distance learning, which could be used as a technique for urban forestry education had its drawbacks as that students, when isolated from centres of learning, often feel a lack of inspiration. There was a virtual reality demonstration by The Tees Forest (England) which demonstrated how this technique can be used in community education. There was a discussion by delegates on how this technique could be used as it was felt that within 5 years it will be common place. It was agreed that the major benefit would be to help the public visualise forest creation and management and to demonstrate the sort of activities that can take place. It was felt that:

KEY FINDING 22 – The costs of developing urban forestry courses and certification could be shared between academic institutions.

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CLOSING SESSION Delegates were keen to express there thanks to the organisers of the Forum, which had been successful. It was agreed that the newly established EFUF website (www.efuf.org) was proving very useful and that it should be continued. Rik De Vreese agreed to act as webmaster. A poster session was held at the end of the forum.

7TH IUFRO EUROPEAN FORUM ON URBAN FORESTRY

The 2004 forum will be held in Stockholm, Sweden between the 23rd and 27th May 2004 alongside the Urban Woods for People concluding conference.

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS KEY FINDING 1 - Urban foresters need social science skills as much as (if not more) than natural science skills, especially in regard to conflict management, media handling training, dealing with ‘ interest’groups such as farmers and nature groups. KEY FINDING 2 –Fully qualified urban foresters require a very wide skill set and that this was too great an expectation for undergraduate students. Urban forestry is considered a specialism and hence required master’ s level study. KEY FINDING 3 –However the foundations of urban forestry are multi-disciplinary in nature and people can approach urban forestry study from a number of different bachelor level backgrounds. KEY FINDING 4 –Accredited prior learning schemes are needed to allow existing urban forest professionals to participate in new post-graduate (master or post graduate certificate) qualification schemes. KEY FINDING 5 –Existing urban forest professionals could provide valuable support to academic institutions, in terms of field work, specialist teaching and construction of courses. KEY FINDING 6 – Stakeholder must be offered robust stake-holder training providing them with all the facts necessary to make informed judgements, for example in terms of visitor management or arboriculture requirements. KEY FINDING 7 –Urban forests are more visited than public libraries even though urban forests receive only a small proportion of funding when compared to public libraries. KEY FINDING 8 –Urban forests needed a local ‘ brand’name and identity which could be a focus for marketing and community participation. A good example of this was Bossanova the new urban forest for Ghent, Flanders (Belgium). KEY FINDING 9 –Key stake-holders need to be kept regularly informed of progress in creating (or managing) the urban forest by using tools such as newsletters and public presentations.

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KEY FINDING 10 –A working knowledge/understanding of the planning system is an important part of urban forestry education. KEY FINDING 11 –The use of terminology such as 'park forests' and 'woodland parks', makes the public more comfortable with new afforestation in urban settings in some countries. KEY FINDING 12 –It was agreed that the public engage with local issues and not with national strategies –the forest must therefore be relevant to local needs and local views. KEY FINDING 13 –Peri-urban areas (also referred to as countryside around towns) are very ‘ specific environments’not entirely urban or rural in their characteristics. Structure planning was encountered in managing or planning these areas but the level of understanding by local government planners was often limited. KEY FINDING 14 – Urban Foresters are foremost the ‘ managers of cultural landscapes not forests’ and that we had responsibilities to develop ‘ tailor made, bespoke and locally appropriate’forest management solutions. There is no ‘ one model fits all’approach that new practitioners can adopt. KEY FINDING 15 –The skills catalogue for urban foresters includes a flexible attitude for ‘ all’ forest workers, entrepreneurship, creativity, taking a lead, integrity of approach and open communications. KEY FINDING 16 – Regional ‘ laboratory forests’should be identified as ‘ action research centres’ and through these highlight examples of good and bad practice. KEY FINDING 17 –Private owners were seen as largely supportive of urban forestry but they are looking for ways of increasing the social values of their forests. As professionals we are finding it hard to advise on this. KEY FINDING 18 –An urban forest profession had to be estbalished and duly recognised. This should have international foundations and enable properly qualified indiviudals to practice within, at least the European Union area. KEY FINDING 19 –The central theme for university education of urban forestry training is about urban resource management, a circle of planning, design and management and the skill sets needed for a career in urban forestry (see above). KEY FINDING 20 –It was agreed that a series of handbooks are needed to assist urban forest education and become standard reference texts for students, practitioners and managers. The nearest thing to these that existed to these was the Forestry Commission (United Kingdom) handbooks. These were however dating but could be revised, extended or utilised as a starting point for new publications. KEY FINDING 21 –A system of CPD (continuing professional development) was felt necessary (c.f. landscape architecture profession) along with the need to have membership of a professional body. KEY FINDING 22 – The costs of developing urban forestry courses and certification could be shared between academic institutions.

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PARTICIPANTS LIST Last name Blok Bonsen Borgman Bouwmeester Broll Buiting Buyse Colaninno Davies de Meijer De Vreese de Vries De Wael Dictus Embo Eriksson Findeis Forrest From Fuchs Gijsel Granet Gunnarsson Gustavsson Häkkinen Hothersall Houtzagers Hullegie Hunt Iskreva Jones Knol Konijnendijk Kopinga Moigneu Prittinen Raggers Randrup Rantala Raven Roelofs Salbitano Schipperijn Shaler Silfverling Simson

First name Jan Karel George Marnix Mario Ronald Griet Barbara Clive Maurice Rik Joan Jos Patrick Tom Liselott Georg Mary Johanna Henk Katrijn Anne-Marie Allan Roland Ilmari Tony Michiel Mark Graham Diana Nerys Reijer Cecil Jitze Thierry Juha John Thomas Kaija Paul Gert-Jan Fabio Jasper Moshe Göran Alan

Institution State Forest Service IPC Groene Ruimte Borgman Beheer Urban Forest Service Borgman Beheer Consultancy Service Autonomous Province of Bolzano/ Forest District Buiting Bosontwikkeling Flemish Forest Organisation Univ. of Bari - Dipartimento di Scienze delle Produzioni Vegetali North East Community Forests Borgman Beheer Consultancy Service Flemish Forest Organisation Larenstein University of Professional Education Flemish Federation of Park and Recreation Administration City of Antwerp Cabinet of the Flemish Minster of Agriculture and Environment The Swedish Forestry Association Bezirksforstinspektion Kornenburg University College Dublin, Dept Forestry Regional Forestry Board of Mälardalen Hogeschool INHOLLAND Delft Flemish Forest Organisation Office National des Forets Department of Landscape Planninig Department of Landscape Planninig Häme Polytechnic Evo Red Rose Forest City The Hague Hullegie bosbouwtechnisch adviesbureau Forest of Mercia Community Forest NGO Earth Forever National Urban Forestry Unit State Forest Service - Region Flevolond - Overijssel Danish Forest and Landscape Reserach Institute Alterra, Wageningen-UR Office national des forêts City of Helsinki, Public Works Department, Green Areas Division Larenstein University of Professional Education Skov & landskab, Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University City of Helsinki, Public Works Department, Green Areas Division Hogeschool INHOLLAND Delft Stichting Twickel Distaf - University of Florence Danish Forest and Landscape Research Institute Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (KKL) Regional Forestry Board of Mälardalen Leeds Metropolitan University

Country The Netherlands The Netherlands The Netherlands The Netherlands Italy The Netherlands Belgium Italy United Kingdom The Netherlands Belgium The Netherlands Belgium Belgium Belgium Sweden Austria Ireland Sweden The Netherlands Belgium France Sweden Sweden Finland United Kingdom The Netherlands The Netherlands England Bulgaria United Kingdom The Netherlands Denmark The Netherlands France Finland The Netherlands Denmark Finland The Netherlands Nederland Italy Denmark Israel Sweden United Kingdom

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Last name Spaeth

First name Institution Renate Ministry for Environment and Nature Conservation, Agriculture and Consumer Protection NRW Spek Hans IPC Groene Ruimte Tikkanen Jukka Oulu Polytechnic Timmer Vic Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto Toniolo Mariolina City of Venice Tyrväinen Liisa University of Helsinki van Alfen Barend Helicon Opleidingen MBCS Velp Van Beckhoven Karin Hogeschool INHOLLAND Delft Van Delft Willem IPC Groene Ruimte van der Linde Daan Larenstein University of Professional Education Van Drie Co Van Drie Bosbeheer Van Herzele Ann Free University Brussels - Human Ecology Department Van Nieuwerburgh Leen Flemish Land Agency van Rooijen Hans Larenstein University of Professional Education van Wassenaer Philip Ontoria Urban Forest Council Vercammen Pieter Flemish Land Agency Zürcher Ernst University of Applied Science, Division of Wood Engineering

Country Germany The Netherlands Finland Canada Italy Finland The Netherlands The Netherlands The Netherlands The Netherlands The Netherlands Belgium Belgium The Netherlands Ontario - Canada Belgium Switzerland

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