Goals And Hurdles For Shade Tree Programs

Individual and organizational goals

It is only through ACTION that goals can be achieved. To be active, each person should be involved, individually and with others collectively as a group. An individual can be effective in bringing about change. Organizations can be more effective, if individuals in the group are working together. Ask yourself some questions.

1. Are you on an active communication basis with decision-makers in your municipality, county, state, and country? You may be in your city or county, but not state or nationally. Why not? It is very important that state and federal programs are strongly and effectively supported. Legislators and other decision-makers are under extreme pressure from all kinds of programs. Competition is very severe. You do not have to be a lobbyist, but you do have a responsibility to inform your legislative representatives, research and extension administrators, and others what the problems and needs are in preserving shade trees. You can contribute a great deal to keeping these people well informed, because they expect to hear from their constituents.

2. How much time, effort, interest, and investment do you devote to professional improvement: maintaining professional contacts, increasing knowledgeability, and improving skills? This aspect of regular activity is as important as maintenance of tools, office work, and record keeping. You need to subscribe to journals and magazines; to belong to local, regional, and national organizations; and to work actively on committees and share officer responsibilities with others.

3. Have you tried writing down some of your ideas and experiences, giving talks, or participating on panels? These are easier to do than it might appear and very self-educating in the process. They are also personally rewarding.

4. Have you planned activities to inform, interest, and motivate others? There are many opportunities in schools, clubs, civic groups, legislative hearings, community affairs activities, etc.

Involvement with personal goals such as the above uncovers and develops talents and capabilities you may not yet be aware that you have. The most difficult obstacle is to generate the activity in yourself. It reminds me of taxes, they are bad enough when inflicted upon you, but would be more so if you had to tax yourself. I believe that to get involved in accomplishing goals, you really do have to “tax” yourself.

So far my comments apply as well to what arborists have been or should have been doing for years. What about now and in the future?

Internal and external goals

I believe the past has been concerned primarily with internal goals: professional improvement of arborists, developing arborists’ organizations, carrying out arborists’ activities. These are essential and must be continued. However, we must be more concerned with exterior goals: the added dimension of the needs of people, communities, society, and the environment in general. There are many indications that we have not filled this vacuum adequately so far. We have been doing something, but not enough. Arborists may not be entirely at fault, but they must share the blame.

Over the years, why has arboriculture and ornamental horticulture played such a minor role in research and extension at land-grant universities? When I worked in New York, there were five full-time research entomologists, and one extension entolologist assigned to fruit insect projects. There were seven full-time researchers and one extension entomologist on vegetable insects. Yet, there was only one entomologist assigned to research and extension for the entire state for nursery, shade tree, ornamentals, and turf insects. This pattern is typical for many states in the past. Today, nationally there are 14 of the 48 continental states with no one assigned to shade tree insect research. There are 25 states with less than one-half scientific-man-year. We must have adequate research and extension resources comparable to those in crop production programs.

Why has the Forest Service been able to suddenly develop Urban Forestry as a major program and move full-steam-ahead? Primarily, they saw some external needs. Until they did move, we needed but did not have scientific data and measurements of the effects of trees on noise abatement; the effects of trees on pollution abatement; the effects of trees on neutralizing waste; effects of trees in modifying urban microclimate; and, most important, the effects of trees on people and communities. These efforts are important in solving the needs of people, society, and the environment. For too long arborists have been concerned primarily with the effects of pollutants on trees, the effects of environmental factors on trees, and the effects of people and urbanization on trees. The foresters capitalized on the effects of trees on people. They were able to get action because they have strong communications with government decision-makers.

Shade trees and ornamentals have been recognized as the most rapidly growing program area by research and educational institutions, and people in general are more aware than ever of their importance. Yet organized projects and programs, personnel, and resources in this program area are far down the priority list. There seems to be little alternative but to conclude that arborists have not been concerned enough with external goals.

Short-term goals and long-range objectives

Individually and organizationally we must set short-range goals in order to accomplish our objectives. These must be organized and carried out in an orderly, systematic, progressive way. Most important they must be aimed at accomplishing long-range objectives. If we agree that we must become more involved with external goals, it is essential to exert considerable impact on society, government, and the decision-makers who influence programs and activities. One of the major hurdles we must overcome is the problem of priorities. In this country we have developed a severe system of pressure priorities. The mistake is that society and government have become crisis-oriented, more and more involved with immediate problems and less and less with long-range objectives. Unfortunately, shade trees seem to be taken for granted, put off as a problem of the future, and generally relegated to a very low position on the priority list.

Recently at a municipal arborists meeting, three cities with outstanding tree programs reported budget and personnel cuts from 40 to 70 per cent while police and fire protection were increased 300 per cent. In one state, a cut of 50 per cent in funds was inflicted on an outstanding arboretum jointly supported by the state and its land-grant University. Such actions arise from crisis-oriented priorities with the result that shade trees and other ornamentals suffer severely in the long run.

Even people who profess to be concerned about environment and ecology baffle me. I cannot understand how people can become so enamoured and active in paper drives (we grow wood as fast as we can use it), in effluent hunts, in trash-sorting parties, in litter campaigns and at the same time wrap all their left-over edibles in sheets of heavy duty aluminum foil, relax in a shower of 20 to 25 gallons of drinking water, flush 200 cc of urine down the drain with 5 to 7 gallons of purified water, and burn 15 to 20 gallons of gasoline a week hauling paper, buying aluminum foil, and carrying on other miscellaneous, mundane activities.

We must work continuously to convince other people, especially the decision-makers, of the importance of long-range objectives such as the preservation and conservation of trees. Shade tree priorities should no longer be put off by decision-makers in government, in research and educational institutions, in municipalities and counties, or even by us in our own daily activities. We must be active in insisting that these problems are urgent and critical now, not sometime in the future. The competition is fierce.

The challenge of change and progress

We have come a long way in our efforts to preserve and improve shade trees in our environmerit. It is a continuing challenge to move ahead, adapt to changes, and expand our objectives. Before concluding my discussion, I would like to comment on a few contemporary problems. First, a new challenge in developing shade tree legislation; second, clarifying and defining roles in shade tree preservation; and third, utilization of all resources for shade tree preservation.

Shade tree legislation

Municipal shade tree laws have been developed in many communities for a long time. Programs to improve and preserve publiclyowned trees have been developed. To assist municipalities which have not yet developed programs, the International Society of Arboriculture recently published a Standard Tree Ordinance.

Much to my surprise, the model ordinance and all of the municipal shade tree experience were of little value when I encountered efforts to establish a tree ordinance in one of our Virginia counties. Since each road in the county is either a primary or secondary state highway, the county does not own any street trees. They belong to the State Highway Department. The aim of the shade tree ordinance, then, was to preserve trees on private property, particularly large tracts being converted into subdivisions and totally cleared for commercial developments. The result is the challenge of writing an ordinance to protect trees in the private domain. It appears that this is possible if done within the zoning law and the justification is based on environmental quality rather than aesthetic beauty. Though few in number, several other communities in the country have developed this approach. The point I want to emphasize is that there is a new problem to solve, a special need of society, and, if you will, an external goal for which we should provide leadership.

Clarifying and defining roles

Diversity of effort appears to be our greatest hurdle in developing effective community shade tree programs. It seems that virtually everyone is involved in one way or another. The disciplines involved include arboriculture, horticulture, landscape architecture, forestry, agronomy, entomology, plant pathology, hydrology, and many others including environmental biology and ecology. In local programs, there are civic groups, conservation and environmental quality commissions, shade tree commissions, shade tree departments, landscape divisions, highway and public works departments, planning boards, zoning boards, and on and on. There seems to be considerable confusion as to who has what responsibility. It has been my experience that all those involved, including city councilmen and county supervisors, think they should know all about trees. I have been inclined to think that I should know all about zoning to help work on a shade tree ordinance. This is unrealistic, and I believe we should concentrate on our own specialties.

I believe that it is essential to clarify the roles of the various people and agencies. By combining and coordinating the expertise of each, programs should run more smoothly and progress more rapidly. The city or county arborist is a specialist on selection, planting, maintenance, and protection of trees. The urban forester is a specialist in the management of woodlands, reforestation, and forest ecology in relation to wildlife, soil and water conservation, and recreational use. The landscape architect is a specialist in designing the use of trees and other plants in relation to structures and urban development. Local citizen groups, governmental boards, and shade tree commissions are specialists in conceiving and implementing program support and action within the political units to which they belong.

Each specialized group should be given the opportunity to carry out its own responsibility most effectively. Each has to have a working understanding of the other’s problems and needs, but I believe there has been undue confusion in the past due to failure to recognize the specialized responsibility of each group. Mutual understanding, cooperation, and coordination of activities are the keys to successful achievements in community shade tree programs.

Utilization of all resources for shade tree preservation

There seems to be a colossal struggle gaining momentum relative to shade trees. In the environmental arena, arborists and ornamental horticulturists are searching for greater recognition, more resources, and better preservation programs for trees. Foresters, long content to work in the forest, on forest products and on related forest uses, are trying to provide solutions to urban forestry programs. Agricultural specialists, both in Research Stations and the Extension Service, are endeavoring to provide research and educational programs for urban and suburban audiences after long years of service for farmers. Many diverse associations, societies, and other organizations, long applied to highly specialized facets of horticulture are now responding to the widespread interest in trees as a part of the environment.

The Cooperative Forest Management Act of 1950 has been amended. Public Law 92-288 now provides for the addition of protecting, improving, and establishing trees and shrubs in urban areas, communities, and open spaces, and gives the responsibilities to state foresters who previously were involved only in forested areas. There appears to be much confusion whether or not urban forestry will take over arboriculture, whether or not there will be excessive overlap and duplication of effort, whether or not “service” or “educational” programs will be emphasized, whether foresters or arborists are better qualified to practice arboriculture; and who will receive funds to carry on arboriculture or urban forestry programs.

The Cooperative Extension Service was authorized by the Smith-Lever Act of 1914 to provide educational programs for agriculture. Over the years much has been done on ornamental horticulture and arboriculture, in relation to need, in cooperative county-state-federal programs. At present Extension is looking for ways to increase its role in arboriculture. Landgrant universities and other educational institutions are attempting to develop improved research and teaching resources, vocational training, and continuing education programs for urban and suburban problems.

In conclusion, I believe that all of the people, organizations, and agencies can contribute to the objectives of shade tree preservation. Never before has the opportunity been so great to achieve those objectives. Never before have so many people in so many areas been so receptive to the importance and preservation of shade trees. Never before have shade trees been considered so essential to environmental quality. Never before has this society been so affluent as to be able to provide necessary resources. Never before in this country have we had greater need to preserve and protect our natural resources. Never before has it been more urgent or critical to take decisive and effective action.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something in setting goals and becoming involved in action. By working hard and working together we will be able to meet the challenges, reach our goals, and achieve the objective of effective shade tree programs.