Visioning the Future Treescape: How our citizen and end user panels contributed to visions of the future treescape for their cities.

The Branching Out project has two sets of panels who have contributed to the development of the project. These are a citizen panel, made up of a representative sample of the adult population of the city; and an end user panel, made of decision makers of all kinds from Council officers to members of ‘friends of’ groups. In our third set of panel workshops in January 2024, we asked these panels to think about the future treescape. The first exercise we asked them to do was to write a very short story that set our what the treescape might be like in the future, they didn’t need to be realistic, but should be thinking either in a human timescale of 25 years, or a tree timescale of 100 years. We asked them to include some detail on what the treescape was like, why it was like that and whereabouts in the city it was happening (this could either be a specific location or be more general. Across the three cities where we work (York, Milton Keynes and Cardiff) we gathered 86 stories. Strikingly, the majority of these stories could be divided into either a utopian vision or a dystopian vision. The dystopian stories tended to address issues that participants feared might come to pass (for instance climate change resulting in extensive flooding or the loss of trees). These stories were creative and imaginative, setting out visions for the future free from the constraints of current limitations.

A vision of the future.

An annotated location specific future vision

In a second exercise, we asked participants to identify a specific location in the city that they would like to change. They were given a Google Streetview image of that location and asked to annotate it to become the scene that they would like to see in the future. The annotations included details why these changes were needed and who should be involved as well as when this should happen.  We gathered 136 visions for specific locations. The results of both of these activities were analysed to identify the values that were represented in them and fit with the Branching Out values framework.

The Branching Out values framework

Narrative ingredients for the ‘Living in’ vision.

Using this analysis and drawing on policy commitments at a local and national level we constructed a narrative vision for each LIFE frame. The narratives each present a vision of the future that emphasizes the future according to a life frame and the goals associated with it.  You can read the narratives below. These narratives have been used as the basis of discussion with the citizen panels to develop a list of priority outcomes for each city and accompanying actions to achieve these goals.

Living IN treescapes – Trees contributing to desirable places to live 

In our city, treescapes and trees increasingly became recognised as a defining feature of the places where we live and work and where we spend time with our family and friends. Trees make us feel at home. 

Local residents are meeting to celebrate 25 years since they planted a community orchard together. A child plays with his friends among the blossoms. The orchard, which the child's mother remembers planting when she was a teenager as part of an educational program, now produces fruit that is shared as part of the celebrations. Trees planted by the child's grandfather in a nearby garden are tall enough to provide shade and can be seen from many residents' houses. A treehouse has been built in one of the pine trees. The grandfather smiles up at the treehouse, remembering how much joy it brought his daughter, and now his grandson. 

Due to new local government policy, everyone in our city now as access to a community woodland or park that is within 300m of their home. Thanks to these targets, the city is greener than it was when the grandfather was young and worked in the city centre. The paved square he used to walk across to get to his office is now a meadow fringed with trees and colourful flowers. 

We focused tree planting to create green spaces for everyone, to recreate, meet up with each other, and to benefit our mental and physical health, escaping the stresses of life and the heat waves that we get more often now due to climate change. The inequality that used to be there, where some people would struggle to find accessible green space, is gone. Green prescriptions are strongly embedded now in the health service, and there are policies in place that ensure that all hospitals and care homes look out on green space. 

We also created a network of green paths throughout the city and put a programme in place to line streets with trees where-ever possible. New utilities and broadband cables have gradually shifted to sit under roads rather than pavements to create space for street trees, which does mean that traffic flow is interrupted more often. The rooftops have also become homes for trees, creating new greenspaces in the city centre for people to use, and to get away from noise and bustle of the pedestrianised streets below.   

We developed culture and business plans to take advantage of green spaces, and we have many more cafes, restaurants, outdoor gyms, music and cultural events outdoors, which local people and tourists enjoy alike. Cultural heritage is also important, we’ve strongly protected veteran trees and old treelined lanes because they are so important to sense of place, and started to think about which trees and lanes might be heritage for future generations. 

Many of the smaller green spaces and community woodlands are managed decentrally through neighbourhood groups, though supported by the council’s tree officers. The tree species planted are prioritised by local people, so there is a diversity of native and non-native species, and many communities choose species that provide colours in the autumn and blossom in the spring. This means it’s a diverse treescape, quite diffuse and focused on amenity, which is not always optimal for biodiversity conservation. 

An old willow tree leans over one of the streams providing dappled shade over the water, which the trees have helped to purify to make it clean enough to swim. The willow has seen the landscape change from fields, to town, to urban jungle; but tree planting now mean that this tree is now better connected to the wider treescape. From the laughter and chatter of people enjoying its shade and playing in its branches you can hear how it is providing a home to the people of the city too. 

Living FROM treescapes - Resource efficiency and prosperity from trees 

My company had sent me on a mission to learn about the city and the investment opportunities. As I drove into town, the roads leading from the centre were lined with blossom trees giving a welcoming feeling. From the top deck of tour buses, tourists took photos of the blossom. Tourists come especially to see the trees, as there aren't so many left in other cities and the tourist industry is important here. Continuing into town, I parked near the city council offices and went in to meet my contact, the green investment manager. They took me up to the roof garden, with a fantastic view across the city.  

The investment manager handed me a brochure. There were opportunities all over the city. In the centre, exclusive roof gardens for paying customers, with a great looking return. The investment manager pointed out green areas on the edges of the city where there are partnership opportunities to invest in agroforestry, where fruit trees and timber trees are growing along with other crops. Tree species that make a mess on the street are now grown in these areas instead and there is less cleaning up for the local authority to do. Local planning laws have changed here to ensure that new trees are planted as a part of new developments, so the new housing around the city looks very green. 

The investment manager proudly showed me the radial greenways that stretch from the town centre out to outlying villages and new housing estates. I could see the hedges, full of fruit trees with runners, cyclists and walkers moving alongside them while staying clear of the traffic on the roads, all saving money on healthcare! Looking up the river, it is possible to make out new areas of trees in the distance. These are planted for a combination of purposes, they are fast growing, to offset the carbon emissions that the city makes but they also absorb a lot of water, and the risk of flooding in the city has gone down significantly. 

When I went out to eat in that evening, the restaurant seemed slightly short of staff. The owner told me that the local teenagers like to get jobs in the agroforestry farms in the summer, and some stay on to learn to do the more skilled jobs like pruning or maintaining the rooftop gardens. 

Planning is not primarily managed to protect nature and wildlife for its own sake, but to make use of nature’s benefits most efficiently. Woodlands are expanded in some places to compensate for losses in other places that are economically most attractive for development. My company has an opportunity to build an industrial complex in another city, but we acknowledge that there will be some biodiversity losses, including an area of trees. If we invest in biodiversity credits in an agroforest here, we can offset the trees and biodiversity we will lose elsewhere and we'll get a nice return on the fruit and other agroforestry products. This will also help compensate for the loss of some old tree-lined lanes just outside of the city that had to make way for industry. I'm looking forward to reporting back to the directors next week. 

Living AS trees and treescapes – Oneness and harmony with trees 

In our city, we started to think more and more about our connection with trees, realising how much we gain from recognising them as a key part of our city. Although they had always been there, we never really saw them. Sometimes we treated them as objects, sometimes as our environment, but what we had not noticed was their aliveness, their beingness, the effect they would have on us when we took a moment to connect with them. Realising the power of this connection, we decided to make trees "green citizens”. They already pay their council tax in kind by cleaning the air, providing shade and protecting us from floods; they are active participants in the life of our city, volunteering just like so many of us do when we care for relatives. 

We brought together policy makers, tree officers, local businesses, artists, researchers and local groups to develop a long-term vision that would support these values of oneness and living in harmony with nature. First, we wanted to address the objectification of trees – how could we prevent people from just treating them as a thing and intrinsically connect people and nature? Local government policy now stipulates that a tree is planted for every child born or adopted. But we also name trees after the children, and we created a city map and register of all the named trees. People are invited to adopt an existing tree when they move into the city. We organise weekly planting and adopting ceremonies in each ward so that new people and parents can connect with their trees and with other people locally. A few people met the love of their lives that way! Our digital maps allow people to trace family lines across trees and people and see connections with trees in twin cities.  

Because we recognised that trees pay their tax in kind, we thought there could be no taxation without representation, so we worked on a city covenant that assigned all trees a guardian. Citizens are on a register of guardians and receive a short training (a bit like being on jury duty) and they represent their tree whenever it could be affected by a new development. We also made some big changes to expand the treescape. We improved and created small mixed-age community woodlands dotted around the city that felt like they were a natural part of the community. This was a higher priority for us than big woodlands. We issued a planning requirement that all new developments and existing streets must be treelined, unless there are strong overriding impediments. We set up social enterprises specifically to support planting trees in private spaces. GPs offered more green prescriptions and many people got involved in managing the treescape through volunteer-run ecotherapy activities; these especially benefitted neurodiverse people. 

Perhaps most important of all, we developed a policy to maximise child engagement with trees through planting and pruning trees for tree climbing, den making, foraging and other sensory activities, embedding forest schools in every primary school and bushcraft in every secondary school curriculum, supporting parents, and ensuring inclusivity for those with additional learning needs. 

Overall, this led to quite an organic way in which we met government targets for tree planting. Though these were originally created to combat climate change, our relationships changed – with the trees, with nature, with each other and with ourselves – and we became healthier physically and mentally through nature connection and being outside, more community focused, more sociable, more creative, and with much happier kids. There’s a hope that all trees will become historic or heritage trees because they all have a story to tell that’s shared between generations. There are some downsides as well: some people have lost out as funding for trees reduced investment in indoor sport, road transport and non-nature-based volunteering activities. Wildlife is doing well, but some ecologists have argued that the distributed treescape is not optimal ecologically, as we have less areas that are primarily focused on maximising biodiversity. 

But trees have definitely become a part of us. We see them as individuals, ask them how they’re doing, and care for them. After all, we know how much they give back. 

Living WITH trees and treescapes - healthy biodiverse ecosystems to protect the environment 

In our city, we wanted to make more space for nature, and trees are a key part of that. Biodiversity, trees and the animals and plants that depend on treescapes deserve to be protected for their own sake. They are also important because of their life supporting services - they are an essential part of building the healthy ecosystem that we all depend on, and that we need to maintain in order to adapt to climate change. 

Our strategy was twofold, we wanted to create new areas of woodland for nature to thrive, and make sure treescapes were ecologically interlinked throughout the city and surrounding areas. We developed the city into a living landscape, connecting existing green spaces and adding trees and hedgerows strategically to open green space to provide cover and habitat through which wildlife can move. Maintaining and extending trees along highways and arterial routes into the city and creating wood meadows in front of key public places such as the train station have added shade and colour, urban cooling and cleaner air and bringing an abundance of birds, insects and other wildlife. Large new national nature reserves have been created outside the city, with a focus on creating spaces that were large enough to support populations of species that were threatened by extinction or that had disappeared from the area in the past.  

Tree planting maximises connectivity and biodiversity, including regeneration of areas to improve wildlife habitat. Reviving canals and maintaining and expanding hedgerows for breaking up open areas or delineating boundaries has increased the city’s flood protection as well as being a core part of the network of green corridors. Nature bridges connect green spaces across main roads, street corners and derelict spaces have been revived into pocket parks or tiny forests by residents together with councils, with information boards on the history of the treescape and biodiversity that the space provides. Small green spaces are linked up where possible with a mix of avenues of trees and pockets of one or two substantial trees. 

Climate resilience has also been important. We selected species for drought and flood resilience in collaboration between experts and the community that will have stewardship of the treescape and in light of long-term management. The integration of forest school activities in national curriculums has fostered, in successive generations, an appreciation for and connection to their local treescapes and built the traditions and skills for communal stewardship of greenspace. 

Local businesses and developers agreed to support the council and take responsibility for trees near them as it formed part of their sustainability strategy, to claim carbon credits, to increase biodiversity and to support employee wellbeing by providing opportunities to care for the trees as well as providing green views to reduce stress and increase productivity. Residents contribute by maintaining bee, insect and wildlife friendly front and back gardens, back alleys and allotments. 

The connected, living landscape has been built with biodiversity as a hard constraint, in other words, developments are not able to go ahead if they have a significant negative effect on biodiversity or rare species. This has meant we have had to be very selective in terms of where we have been able to expand housing and other developments, restricting it to brown field sites and low-grade agricultural land. Because we feel giving space to nature is just as important as giving space to development, developments have become more efficient, and we are seeing more compact housing and appartements to make the best use of available space. This does mean that large houses come at a premium. 

The green corridor network has also required a reduction in car presence in the city. A number of key routes in the centre and connecting suburbs have become safe green lanes for walking and cycling only. This has encouraged more cycling and walking. The constraints on cars have also boosted public transport use and a growing cargo bike sector. 

Overall, we are living much more with nature, wildlife populations have massively increased in the city, the city has been cleaned up and is more resilient to flooding, heat waves. 

Working together to develop, test and evaluate data presentation tools

In December 2023, the Branching Out team gathered for a one-day, in-person meeting in Birmingham. Being able to be in a room together as a whole project team, thinking imaginatively and sharing ideas helps drive this project forward so that we can create outputs that link diverse branches of research. Although the primary agenda began as an ideation-centred internal design jam, the session evolved into a focused exploration of testing and evaluating an internal data presentation tool that some of the team had developed.

Testing an internal tool for data mapping and visualisation

In the morning, the team tested and evaluated cross-work package data compilation tools. Hannah Walker and Joe Fennell have been developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) tool that would enable the research team to see and analyse spatially mapped data elements from the different work packages and facilitate the production of research outputs, such as articles, policy recommendations, or applications for external users.

Hannah and Joe have been using the ArcGIS platform to develop a tool that organises our research data into a comprehensive dashboard, enabling us to see remote-sensed tree data alongside historic tree maps, biophysical data on individual trees recorded in Urban Tree Observatories, stories of the past and present, and georeferenced quotes from citizen panels that are linked to a particular site – coded into different themes and life frames.

In this workshop, the Branching Out team members split into groups with facilitators and were able to try out this tool and provide feedback. Responses included the need for navigation guidelines that would make easier to use for those unfamiliar with GIS and ideas about what additional functionality might be useful. It feels like being able to see all these project strands together has helped us as researchers to turn a corner – to see the progress we have made on this project and how this research could be applied.

Developing ideas for improving a tree-based citizen science platform

Citizen science allows members of the public to engage with their local environment and contribute data that researchers can use, for example to map species occurrences and record phenology. We used part of the afternoon session of this Design Jam to think about how social and cultural values could be integrated within a citizen science tool and consider ideas for updating an existing platform to incorporate some of the findings emerging from the Branching Out project.

Treezilla is a citizen science platform developed by the Open University in collaboration with Forest Research and other enterprises over the last 10 years; it now includes an interactive database of over a million trees. While the primary purpose of this platform is to collect biophysical data on urban trees, there might be an opportunity to develop the website to support representation of more diverse data such as highlighting which trees might be more important to people.

Design Jam participants were asked to get creative and design a new dashboard for Treezilla. When teams reported back, it was clear that users wanted to see more information on the context of individual trees – where does this tree rank in terms of its size? Is this an unusual species?  How might it help mitigate risks associated with local flooding and air quality? Has there been a tree on this site for a long time? Why might this tree be important? This discussion aimed to explore potential contributions from the public and get ideas from the Branching Out team for Treezilla's future development.

Branching Out hitting the headlines

In the last session of the day, workshop participants were asked to come up with newspaper articles about activities or events that could hit the headlines as a result of outputs from the Branching Out project. Ideas for news stories included visions for changes in tree management policies, new tools being used to inform urban tree-planting decisions, and exciting experiences to engage members of the public. We could then reflect on actions needed to make these stories become reality – what data would we need, what outputs should we produce, and how would we make them accessible? Working on these ideas creatively together helps us increase the impact of the Branching Out project as we move forward with analysing the data we have collected and developing outputs for different audiences.

Group Reflections on Interdisciplinarity So Far

“You’re always changing your thinking, you’re always changing your methods… [Interdisciplinary engagements] are a part of a slow and relentless journey forwards, of learning. These kind of conversations are the things that fuel the engine that drives that forwards.”

In February 2023, an in-person meeting took place in Cardiff with members of the Branching Out project. During this meeting, 13 members of Branching Out interviewed one another using a set of questions developed by team members from Forest Research. The interviews were then analysed using an impact evaluation framework that aims to help us understand interdisciplinary working within the project. The evaluation framework covers three broad themes covered below.

 Context of Interdisciplinary Working

By having regular online meetings, people felt able to listen to colleagues and see the bigger picture. Through in-person opportunities, team members were able to engage in practical aspects of the project, such as measuring trees, which helped team members understand the project as a bigger picture.

 The most widely perceived challenge was how to ensure that data collected within the project could be used by different disciplines. For data to be used efficiently, there needs to be consistent and clear communication about the research needs within each work package. Similarly, research outputs need to be able to be understood by people from other disciplines.

 As it is understood that people across Branching Out come from different disciplines, the project has become a comfortable environment to ask ‘naïve’ or ‘ignorant’ questions. This encouraged team members to learn more about different disciplines as well as enabled colleagues to speak about what they know and enjoy. Interdisciplinarity has given the team a sense of community due to the exercise of patience, understanding of other’s emotions and effective communication.

 Impact on Researchers

Conceptual changes were seen as incremental and subtle. Many interviewees reported having a more open mind to other disciplines’ way of working and an eagerness to learn. This was associated with increased flexibility and openness and all colleagues felt like this would continue to develop over time.

 Instrumental changes also took place. Multiple people said that they planned on asking more questions about systems, tools and practices they did not understand such as geographic information systems (GIS), storytelling, and more. Interviewees were overall committed to continuous learning and felt motivated to use other disciplinary tools in their field.

 Despite every interviewee believing that they have an interdisciplinary background or had worked on an interdisciplinary project before, members of the Branching Out project recognise this project as being a unique, challenging, and exciting opportunity.

 “You’re always changing your thinking, you’re always changing your methods… [Interdisciplinary engagements] are a part of a slow and relentless journey forwards, of learning. These kind of conversations are the things that fuel the engine that drives that forwards.”[JR1] 

 Capacity Building

  The interdisciplinary nature of the project has led interviewees to broaden their views on other disciplines and challenge their assumptions. These assumptions include the perceived legitimacy of a research methodology that they had not used before previously. All interviewees saw the importance of reflection and reflexivity.

  Colleagues felt that they needed to fully understand the concepts that they wanted to share. This was perceived as more easily done in person rather than online. Additionally, verbally communicating these concepts was perceived as easier to do than via text.

 Conclusions

 The project was generally perceived as a positive learning experience by those who took part in the interviews. It was thought that aspects of collaboration would still need work to ensure that data will be created and shared in an effective, accessible way in the future. All interviewees expressed the importance of working as a team to make sure goals are met within the project and want to help other members of the team, using their skills and research.

 At the time of writing, some of the ideas that interviewees felt had the potential to mitigate potential challenges have been implemented or are in the pipeline.

We hope to conduct similar interviews in Spring 2024.

 By Jordan Rydlewski, Forest Research

Tree survey in Bute Park and Arboretum

One of our ambitions in Branching Out is to make connections between the social and cultural values that people hold about trees, and physical characteristics of trees that we can measure and map.

To achieve that we have a program of aerial surveys (high resolution photography and other data collection onboard light aircraft) over the three partner cities Cardiff, Milton Keynes, and York. To validate the data collected in the aerial surveys we also have a program of in-situ (on the ground) tree surveying in small areas we have termed Urban Tree Observatories (UTOs).

In July I travelled to Cardiff to survey the trees in one of the UTOs, located in Bute Park.

Bute Park and Arboretum (Barc a Gardd Goed Bute) covers 53 hectares of green space alongside the River Taff and is known as the green heart of the city. It was formerly part of the grounds of Cardiff Castle, and was laid out from 1873 by Andrew Pettigrew, who was head gardener for the Third Marquess of Bute. In 1947 the park was presented to Cardiff Council, for the benefit of the people of Cardiff, and it is still owned and managed by the council today.

Over four days I surveyed around 90 trees. For each tree in the UTO, I recorded its location, species, diameter of the trunk, total height and height to the base of the crown, canopy spread in two directions, condition, life expectancy, and took photos of the tree, trunk, and leaves.

The park is home to numerous Champion Trees (trees which are the largest of their species in the country), as well as many rare and interesting species. A magnificent hybrid wingnut (Pterocarya x rehderiana) opposite the summerhouse café proved too large for my diameter measuring tape!

People are always keen to chat and ask what I’m doing while I’m surveying, and I had some great conversations with local people relaxing in the park, tourists walking through, and people who work in the park. It’s clear that Bute Park is special to a lot of people.

We have surveyed trees in the UTOs in York, Cardiff and Milton Keynes. Our next steps are to build digital maps of trees and their characteristics using the aerial imagery and other remote-sensed data across the three cities. We will use the UTO tree data to validate these newly-created spatial datasets, and we will link them to the social and cultural values we have discovered in the project. Ultimately we want to use our spatial data to build a tool to enable local authorities to start meaningful conversations with local people as part of managing and designing urban forests.

Storytelling in Milton Keynes

Throughout May, MK gallery in Milton Keynes, will be working with artist Felix Loftus and the Branching Out research team to capture stories about trees from local perspectives. The images and stories captured during this residency will be put into a collective artwork and exhibition that will run 2- 4 June.

The first public workshop took place at ‘Tree Cathedral’ on Saturday 13 May. This Cathedral is an outdoor space made from planted trees rather than bricks and mortar.

“The Tree Cathedral at Newlands is based on the outline of Norwich Cathedral and was designed in 1986 by landscape architect Neil Higson.”

https://www.theparkstrust.com/parks/tree-cathedral/

This was an ideal location to collect stories about treescapes. The participants took part in a visual storytelling workshop led by Alma Solarte-Tobon from the Loughborough University Storytelling Academy, alongside a Digital Art workshop led by artist in residency Felix Loftus.

This residency at MK gallery was made possible through Loughborough University’s Radar programme. https://radar.lboro.ac.uk/projects/branching-out/

MK Gallery is an ‘architectural gem’ that presents significant exhibitions of contemporary and historic art and design, alongside extensive public programmes. https://mkgallery.org/about/

About Felix Loftus

Felix Loftus is a computational artist, technician, and creative educator, specialising in low-power digital photography and interactive fiction games. He explores how technology can be a tool for re-enchanting and restoring relationships to the land and to the more-than-human world.

Observing one of our citizen panels in York

The research team has run three citizen panels in our focal cities of York, Milton Keynes, and Cardiff. The aim of the panels was to bring local citizens together to better understand how trees matter to them by gathering stories they have of how they engage with and think about the treescapes across their cities at present.

I was fortunate enough to observe the citizen panel in York in late January. Others in the team had put in a lot of effort to organise the evening which lasted from 5.30pm until 9pm, with a buffet dinner also provided for participants. I sat at one of the tables for the evening to listen to people’s perspectives and it was fascinating. Participants talked about trees they knew or had planted and about trees in the street, in parks, and woodlands in the city. One person talked about planting trees to mark the birth of his children and there was then some discussion of how trees and woods can be magical and exciting when experienced with, and through the eyes of, children. There was general agreement at my table that the city would be ‘barren and drab’ without trees, not only because of how they impact on the aesthetics of the city but also because of the life that the trees support; with birds mentioned on several occasions, and the fruits that trees can provide. The participants highlighted that trees have something to offer in every season of the year and there was a lot of enjoyment expressed for tree blossom.

There was acknowledgement that people don’t always notice trees as much as they might, but they said they would notice if they were not there anymore. Some negative aspects were raised as well such as some trees casting too much shade near houses and gardens, dropping fruits, leaves, and becoming large and difficult to deal with as they grow. This seemed to be an issue of context such as proximity, as trees in streets or avenues and parks were valued for their aesthetics and providing shade on hot days.

At the end of our evening one participant said ‘I can’t believe we talked about trees for over three hours’. There was no shortage of comments from participants, and they highlighted that perceptions and engagement with trees could also change throughout life from focusing on the magical side of woods when you have children, to considering trees more practically when they are in your own garden, to appreciating the provision of important benefits they provide.