Determining Public Values of Urban Forests Using a Sidewalk Interception Survey in Fredericton, Halifax, and Winnipeg, Canada

Abstract

With the majority of Canada’s population concentrated in cities, it is important to determine what people consider important in urban nature. The concept of values can help illustrate what people consider important in urban nature beyond utilitarian considerations. This is the case for urban forests. However, many studies about public opinion on urban forests do not capture expressions of importance, focus on all the trees of the city, or provide respondents with a direct experience of urban forests. In Canada, most assumptions about Canadian urban forest values are based on results from the United States. In this study researchers present and analyze urban forest values data gathered with a sidewalk interception survey in the cities of Fredericton, New Brunswick; Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to address some of these limitations. Respondents were asked to rate the level of importance of urban forests and mention the reasons. Results show that respondents rate the urban forest at a high level of importance and the reasons for this are aesthetics, air quality, shade, and naturalness, among other themes. There was a tendency for older people, women, and non-students to rate urban forests at a higher level of importance. Weather, related to time of year of survey delivery, has a discernible influence on the way value themes are distributed in the data. The study authors infer that this method helps capture data on respondents’ psychological states instead of their intellectual awareness as to what they consider important about urban forests.