Research team

Partners

Collaborators

Birmingham Tree People, Birmingham   

Street Trees for Living, London   

Tiny Forest Programme, National   

Fruit and Nut Village, Birmingham   

Walking Forest, Exmouth   

Eden Project Communities, National   

More Trees BANES, Bath

The Orchard Project, across the UK   

National Trust Urban Forest Accelerator   

Aims

ExCASES Missions provide short, intense periods of focus towards issues that have been communicated as priorities for RENEW partner organisations and external stakeholders. The ExCASES team work collaboratively with people across different sectors and disciplines, co-designing research and participatory processes to generate empowering outcomes for people and the environment.   

This exploratory mission aimed to:    

• understand what works well in cultivating community participation in the management and care of urban trees;​ 

• illustrate the power and hope of local community action for biodiversity in urban areas;​ 

• uncover principles of best practice which can inform local authorities and larger landscape-scale initiatives;​ 

• create outputs which support the collaboration between large and small projects for greater biodiversity outcomes.

Approach

Urban trees have long been vital for the biodiversity of cities due to the huge array of animal, plant, and fungi species that rely on them for habitat, food, shelter, water, canopy cover and many other life-supporting roles (Endreny et al., 2017; van den Bosch & Ode Sang, 2017). Furthermore, urban trees provide diverse ecological, social and cultural connection to people and communities, for example through their beauty, seasonality, longevity, air quality, groundwater control, and cooling shade.  

The planting, ongoing care and protection of urban trees have most commonly been the responsibility of local authorities. Whilst local authorities usually hold the decision-making power, urban trees have often been supported by grassroots action, small community groups, and the voluntary work and participation of local communities who care about green spaces. There are examples of this in most towns and cities across the UK, seen in urban food forests, community orchards, street tree wardens/guardians, and even coordinated guerilla planting and tree protection activism.   

Many research projects and initiatives are currently exploring issues related to the maintenance and expansion of the urban tree canopy. Despite this, there is a gap in terms of drawing lessons from community work experts – the community groups on the ground, often working with very limited resources – about how best to ensure the meaningful participation of communities in the care of and decisions about urban trees for effective biodiversity outcomes.  

To amplify and consolidate local participation and involvement in the care of and decisions about urban trees, local authorities and larger landscape initiatives need to connect and work effectively with the small and medium sized organisations who are already cultivating care for trees in urban spaces. This is a ripe opportunity to learn lessons from places which are doing this well.     

This mission has taken an exploratory approach. It started with creating a long-list of interesting place-placed urban tree initiatives that are working with communities. A short list was generated based on including a spread of project-type/focus and geographic location. Interviews took place with these projects and short ‘spotlight’ case studies are being created that tell good news stories of local action for urban trees. A participatory workshop in October 2024 brought together different place-based projects to: discuss some of the challenges and opportunities small-medium projects experience when working with communities on urban trees​; explore how partnerships and collaborations between initiatives of different sizes can be improved​; and feed into mission outputs.  

Next Steps

The mission is currently in the processing and analysing stage of delivery.