North

1. From Tree Inventories to Free Beer:
Broadening Community Involvement in
Urban Forestry
Eric North
- Research Fellow - nort0105@umn.edu -
Partners in Community
Forestry November 2016

2. Learning Objectives
• Gain insight into training
volunteers for more complex tasks
• Translate your passion and interest
in trees beyond tree enthusiasts

3. A Disastrous Opportunity
Community Engagement and Preparedness
(CEP)

4. Know Your Objectives!
Urban and Community Forestry
Inventory: Accuracy
Community: Engagement

5. Tree Inventories
• 14 Communities ~140 volunteers
• Tree ID – Genus vs. Species
• Tree measurements - DBH & Crown
• Condition Rating – beyond good/fair
• Data entry – paper to computers

6. Inventory
Purpose?
• Data
• Continued involvement

7. Training
Technical Assistance
Field
Classroom

8. Manuals
First approach
- Detailed specifics -
62 pages, few images
Second approach
- Less is more -
25 pages, many images

9. Tree ID
First Approach
- Detailed,
species level ID
Second Approach
- Basics, genus level -

10. Tree Measurements
• DBH and Crown Width

11. Condition Rating:
Beyond – good/fair/poor
• Crown rating
• Stem rating
• Numeric scale

12. Data Entry

13. Web Resources
www.mntreesource.com

14. Volunteer Performance:
Raw data
Know your objectives:
100% accuracy?

15. Value of Engagement

16. Volunteer Demographics

17. A Delicious Opportunity
• Minneapolis: 8,000
trees a year
• New tree survival
• Craft breweries
community-based

18. Program

19. Adoptions
• ~500 individual adopters
• Over 500 trees adopted
• 7 breweries, 1 coffee shop
• Other partners

20. Two Objectives:
Increase young tree survival
&
Urban forestry awareness

21. Brewing a Better Forest
Adopters

22. Summary
• Sustained programs
– Inventories, ongoing projects
– Older, more established in the
community
• Outreach programs
– Tree watering, maybe tree planting
– Younger, community establishment
varies
• Lots of opportunity for community
engagement with urban forestry

23. Thanks
• Gary Johnson - Professor of Urban and
Community Forestry
• Andi Dierich - DuPage County Environmental
Coordinator (former Graduate student)
• Nick Bancks - Graduate student
• Minnesota communities and the many
volunteers, undergraduates
• University of Minnesota – Department of
Forest Resources
• Minnesota DNR
- Eric North nort0105@umn.edu -
- Department of Forest Resources -