A Swat Team for Urban Forestry    (View PDF)

Donald C. Willeke

Abstract: Municipal arborists are often limited in effectiveness because they do not know how to organize and use a small but effective network of influential citizens as a support group. Such a group is more useful than the usual "citizens' shade tree organizations" which are hard to maintain and mobilize. An effective support group would probably include municipal activists from the following categories: lawyers, public relations people, corporate leaders, university tree experts, media people, city engineer (if possible), wealthy citizens, and legislators or city council members. This urban forestry "SWAT Team" is not easy to collect, and the potential members require careful cultivation, but it can provide substantial, efficient, and speedy assistance in dealing with budget, labor, environmental, media, and citizen problems faced by the municipal arborist.

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https://doi.org/10.48044/jauf.1987.001