Encouraging residents' stewardship of street trees in Australia's capital city, Canberra

In Canberra, Australia's capital city, an urban forest strategy was introduced to foster the role of urban forests as nature-based solutions to climate change. One of its goals is to engage residents in the stewardship of neighbourhood street trees, which requires an understanding of residents' perceptions of and attitudes towards street trees and their willingness to play a stewardship role. This research explores these issues for Canberra residents who engaged with the pilot Street Forestry Program and considers implications for initiatives encouraging stewardship of urban street trees. It draws from a survey of 137 residents and 190 vote cards returned as part of the Program, participant observation at the Program's engagement events, and ten interviews of residents by the senior author. Survey and interview results suggest a widespread view among respondents that street trees are important for a variety of reasons - around 70% of survey respondents reported that they engaged in stewardship behaviour towards street trees. The main factors identified as influencing stewardship behaviour were individual motivations, perceptions, attitudes and values; personal circumstances; and government policies and programs. These were incorporated into a model of stewardship behaviour developed for cities in the United States, adapted to incorporate values and place attachment. The findings of this study inform the Australian Capital Territory Government's goal of fostering urban tree stewardship in the Canberra community and the achievement of similar goals and programs elsewhere. Governments should engage in a suite of best practices to encourage stewardship by residents. These include a sustained commitment to community engagement, the strengthening of stewardship education, and collaboration with neighbourhood groups. Given that the Street Forestry Program and this study were limited and targeted in scope, there are opportunities for further research in this topic area, with larger and more representative sample populations.