BTC/97/2014 - Urban greening: turning aspirations into action. Municipal Tree Officer’s Association Newsletter (Winter 2014/15)
There is a compelling body of published and emerging research, supported by a burgeoning array of anecdotal evidence, that trees are the most cost-effective element of urban infrastructure for delivering multiple community benefits. All the more surprising then that we find national and local government commonly impotent at successfully protecting existing trees and incorporating new trees into new urban development. On a daily basis, we see valuable, and sometimes irreplaceable, trees lost in the name of progress, and the new trees promised by the ‘here-today-gone-tomorrow’ politicians often failing to live past the first few years of planting. Plenty of talk and very little action is the common reality; the quality and extent of our urban canopy cover is decreasing, so what are the prospects of reversing that damaging trend?