Future directions for urban forestry

Posits future directions and needs, including specific action items, for urban forestry in the United States. [UMN]

"In an ever-urbanizing world, cities are the most ecologically friendly way to provide essential services to large numbers of people. As the Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Environment Development, Maurice Strong, noted a decade ago, the battle for sustainability will be won or lost in the cities of the world. Unfortunately, environmental researchers, scientists, and funders worldwide ignored Strong. Even now, these individuals and the organizations they work for dismiss urban areas as lost causes. Some federal agencies that have responsibility for the ecological health of our country, for instance, consider cities politically intimidating and beyond help. Cities are too big, too will-funded, and too for-gone for technical assistance and funding, or so the thinking goes. Many environmental foundations have turned their backs on cities and urban dwellers, preferring instead to fund projects that propose to save the last bits of wilderness where they believe the only true nature still exists." [Abstract]

[September 17-20, 2003, San Antonio, Texas]