Search

Governments increasingly collaborate with residents and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in urban forest management because of the underlying belief that these groups improve the delivery of local forest services. However, in practice, the successes, challenges, and outcomes vary drastically by collaborative arrangement; solely documenting positive outcomes in NGO-government collaborations may hinder the ability to mitigate their associated downsides rather than biasing collaborative behaviours towards success. This study draws on the experiences of urban forest professionals across nine Canadian cities who have participated in or observed NGOs and local governments engage in collaborative urban forest management. We employed semi-structured interviews with 32 participants from three groups: leaders of NGOs, municipal government officials, and urban forest experts who have observed the two parties interact. Our results demonstrate that the addition of NGOs in municipal forest management is associated with positive outcomes and the characteristics of relationships, individual personnel, and community support contribute to their success. We also characterize the barriers that collaborators are tasked with navigating in order to achieve positive outcomes, including high employee turnover, siloed departments, competing priorities, shifting politics, and precarious funding and contracts. Our recommendations for successful NGO-government collaborations include arming stakeholders with a thorough knowledge of civic processes, diversifying political relationships, fostering "champions" among a greater number of involved parties, and participating in longer-term contracts and funding agreements. Further, involved parties should ensure they work towards the equitable distribution of the benefits and outputs of urban forest collaborations. Moving forward, because of the insular nature of NGO-government collaborations and a low capacity among NGOs to share the outputs of these collaborations, we recommend researchers continue to study the successes and shortcomings under varying governance arrangements so that groups may benchmark their collaborative activities against others and determine the most effective means of participating in co-management. • The addition of NGOs in forest management is associated with ecological and social benefits. • Champions, sociocultural backdrops, and knowledge of civic processes contribute to success. • Funding, shifting politics in government, turnover, and censorship are vulnerabilities to success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global intensification of urbanization is driving a disconnect between humans and nature. Communicating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (EDS) to city residents offers an opportunity to help reassociate people with ecological processes of the urban forest, benefiting support for urban forest management. It has been theorized that the complexity of ES and EDS may dissuade their coverage by journalists in print media. Further, the complexity of the interrelationship of ES and EDS could represent a challenge for communication. To examine communication of ES and EDS, we conducted a literature review of newspaper articles published in two prominent newspapers in Winnipeg, Manitoba between January 2010 and May 2021. During the study period, 114 urban forestry articles mentioned ES and/or EDS. Cultural services were the most frequently discussed, followed by regulating services. Provisioning services were discussed least which may reflect their reduced importance in urban forestry discourse/management. Twenty-three articles mentioned EDS, only eight of which also mentioned ES. Only six articles referenced the related ES to the EDS, all of which were in articles focused on tree planting. Despite the complexity of many ES discussed in the articles, the interrelatedness of some ES and EDS were not well described. Counter to previous newspaper reviews, we found that ES were discussed more than EDS. However, the communication of EDS remains an important component of urban forest discourse. While navigating communication on the intersection of ES and EDS may prove challenging in print journalism, we argue restructuring EDS communication such that it is framed in ES discourse could mitigate public concerns surrounding urban forestry, while creating equitable coverage of urban forest affairs. We identify the need for further research on the impact of social media and television as alternative venues for urban forestry discourse. • Examined over 10 years of Winnipeg urban forestry newspapers articles (N = 352). • Cultural ecosystem services were most frequently discussed. • Common tree disservice themes were litter accumulation and infrastructure damage. • A minority of articles discuss both ecosystem services and disservices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]