Beyond the axe: Interdisciplinary approaches towards an urban silviculture

Abstract

Forests in cities, from remnant woodlands to designed natural areas, are common and abundant. Ecologically similar to rural forests, these landscapes lend themselves to the principles of traditional forest management, such as silviculture. But the application of silviculture to forests in cities, at least in the United States, has long been met with resistance: as far back as Olmsted’s Central Park experiments with ‘planting thick and thinning quick’, public sentiment has been protective of trees, even when forest health would have benefitted from such treatments. Urban silviculture is a conceptual framework and a renewed call for a systematic approach to managing forests in cities that addresses cities’ socioecological context through adapted practices that integrate other disciplines, including design. Using emerging science and case studies, we explore how silviculture and landscape architecture, two allied yet often-alienated disciplines, can engage to create socially responsive evidence-based approaches that enhance the design, management and resilience of forested landscapes in cities.