August 2015

Urban tree planting principles

Urban ecosystems, including trees, came under considerable scrutiny at the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) conference in Manchester, which took place this week. The traditional SER approach to vegetation re-establishment is to seek the planting of native species whenever possible, but this was challenged by several speakers. For urban areas, Andy Moffat argued that community needs and climate change were as important issues as biodiversity when managing trees, especially in town and city centres. He pointed to the need for diversification in the range of trees in urban areas and suggested that ecologists might also like to consider architectural principles when designing urban green infrastructure. Andy’s PowerPoint presentation can be accessed HERE.

Another symposium at the SER conference entitled “Restoring Ecological Function to Urban Areas” organised by Jacqueline Beggs of the University of Auckland touched on similar issues. Jacqueline has posted an interesting blog resulting from the presentations and subsequent discussion – have a look HERE.