Introduction

Urban populations are growing rapidly, placing increasing pressures on natural and social systems in and near cities. According to the U.S. Census, in 2010 nearly 81% of the U.S. population lived in an urban area, with nine of the ten most densely populated urban areas found in the west (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). Increasing urbanization is projected to continue (Alig, Klein, & Lichtenstein, 2004) and will impact urban forests and green spaces through increasing pressure from human behavior in cities. Many of these impacts may be mitigated by urban forests that generate a host of benefits for people, commonly referred to as ecosystem services. Urban forests and green spaces also create costs and challenges that must be considered to ensure these resources are efficiently managed. In order for managers to effectively manage urban forests, they must seek to improve their understanding of the relationship between humans and natural resources.

Historically, natural resource management has primarily been based in the biological and ecological sciences (Keough & Blahna, 2005). Though this may have, at one time, appeared to be a logical approach to natural resource management, today natural resource professionals recognize that human beings are as integral to natural resource management as trees, soil, and water. Perhaps nowhere is the human-nature relationship more important to understand than in urban areas. Today's urban natural resource managers and planners need comprehensive and integrated information to help them effectively manage services and challenges associated with urban natural resources including forests. Effective urban and urban-proximate natural resource management strategies must incorporate an understanding of public perceptions and attitudes about management practices (Toman, Shindler, & Brunson, 2006) in addition to ecological information. In response to the need for more integrated urban forest management that includes human dimensions, this project was developed in a partnership between the Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society at Oregon State University and the Oregon Department of Forestry, with support from the U.S. Forest Service. By focusing on public attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services, the project team's goal was to inform managers and planners about public perceptions of urban forestry services, and provide them with management strategies for urban/urban-rural interface forests that are responsive to public input.

Understanding the public's attitudes and perceptions of management activities will give managers a better idea of how best to interface with the public, as well as provide insights into public responses to management actions (Abrams, Kelly, Shindler, & Wilton, 2005). Members of the public commonly have differing levels of knowledge about natural resource management which can influence their responses and attitudes about management (Loomis, Bair, & Gonzalez-Caban, 2001). Further, levels of trust in managers and agencies can affect public attitudes about, and responses to, management activities (Davenport, Leahy, Anderson, & Jakes, 2007). Currently, however, there remains a relative lack of research and information on public attitudes and understanding about ecosystem services (Smith et al., 2011). The overall goal of this project is to contribute information on public attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services to management decisions by measuring Oregon city residents' knowledge and attitudes about urban forests. Project results will facilitate more comprehensive and integrated management of urban forests by providing information on the social component of ecosystem services. To accomplish our overall goal of contributing to future integrated and inclusive management, we set three project goals.

Our first goal was to support comprehensive urban forest management. We achieved this goal by accomplishing three objectives. First, we collected and analyzed data on city residents' attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services. Second, we identified urban residents' attitudes and knowledge about ecosystem services and have used this information in developing management strategies. The third objective, of incorporating public opinion into management strategies, will depend upon natural resource professionals using our proposed strategies (as is, or modified to suit individual needs) in future management. Our second goal was to contribute to improving individual and community welfare in Oregon cities. To meet our second goal, we sought to accomplish objectives that included developing suggestions for tools and strategies to aid in improvement of ecosystem service delivery from urban forests. These strategies will contribute to future sustainable planning efforts in Oregon. The contribution of the study results and recommendations to sustainable city planning remains somewhat uncertain and will depend upon how managers and planners incorporate suggested strategies into future management planning. Our third goal was to create new learning and outreach networks among managers and the public. Achieving this goal will depend greatly on the efforts of resource managers and decision makers, with the support of our research results, to continue to improve their engagement efforts with non- governmental stakeholders. We have provided means to accomplishing this goal by evaluating what members of the public in the cities included in the survey felt were preferred and trusted information sources, and preferred ways of receiving information. We identified public concerns about urban/urban-rural interface forests to help achieve targeted collaborative development. We generated strategies for outreach to help support participatory planning now and more public involvement in planning in the future. New public and private collaborative partnerships will take time to develop and will depend on individuals and agencies dedicating time and resources to creating lasting partnerships. We anticipate that results from this research project will help create opportunities for new public and private collaborative partnerships in the future to ensure that urban forest management remains flexible and responsive to changing community and ecological needs.

To complete this research, we carried out the project in three stages. A more thorough discussion of methodology can be found in Appendix 2, but we briefly describe methods here. In the first stage of the project, we conducted focus groups with both governmental and non-governmental stakeholders to discuss their perceptions of the public's awareness and attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services. We held discussions in which multiple topics were covered, including having participants describe ecosystem services produced by urban forests, what they felt were costs or problems associated with urban forests, and what they thought important management goals for urban forests should be. Results from these focus groups were combined with results from an extensive review of existing literature on ecosystem services and urban forests to inform development of the general public questionnaire that was mailed out in the second stage of the project.

We developed, pre-tested, and then randomly distributed a mailback questionnaire to residents in Portland, Eugene, Springfield, and Bend, Oregon. The questionnaire contained items concerning understanding of urban forest ecosystem services, evaluation of important ecosystem services, attitudes about challenges associated with urban forests (e.g., leaf litter, broken sidewalks), and what respondents felt were important management goals. We also asked survey participants about their preferred forms of communication on the topic of urban forests, and who they trusted as reliable sources of natural resource information. We conducted customary social science statistical analyses on data from completed questionnaires and generated a synopsis of data analyses. The synopsis was sent to natural resource professionals who agreed to participate in follow-up meetings to discuss survey outcomes. Stage three of the project, the follow-up meetings with natural resource professionals, contributed to the suggested strategies discussed in the following chapter.

Our aim was to produce a guide that would be easy for natural resource professionals to use. This document is therefore arranged in the following manner. Following this brief introductory section, we present the suggestions for management strategies that meet our primary objective of providing suggestions for incorporation of information pertaining to public attitudes and opinions into management strategies. The management strategies are organized into three category areas, presented in random order (i.e., the order is not meant to imply any one strategy is more important than another). The categories are: contact strategies, personalization strategies, and messaging strategies. These categories were created based on our review of notes and recordings from follow-up meetings with resource professionals in stage three of the project. Within each category, you will find subheadings discussing a particular approach or suggestion. We have also included examples of the application of some of these strategies (or nearly the same strategy) already in use in cities in Oregon and elsewhere. Webpage addresses for other programs and initiatives we provide as examples have been included for you in the hope that visiting the sites may help further develop your individual management ideas and strategies. Following the strategies section, we have included appendices that discuss in greater detail the literature review and background (Appendix 1 Literature Review), project methods (Appendix 2 Project Methods), and descriptions of data and analyses (Appendix 3 Data Analysis) for those interested in reviewing the empirical foundation of the management strategies we have developed. In cases where a management strategy can be directly tied to a particular piece of data or analysis, the location of the data and analysis in the appendices is attached to that management strategy.

Lessons learned in Oregon cities can help inform resource management decisions for urban/ urban-rural interface forests elsewhere. Other states, especially in the west, are challenged with rapid development in urban/urban-rural interface zones and with providing livable urban communities. Management strategies and tools developed from this project can help inform collaborative and participatory resource policy and urban planning decisions in other cities in Oregon and elsewhere. Multiple partner collaboration will help promote lasting relationships by strengthening connections among resource professionals, planners, and other organizations serving communities. Finally, the project survey instrument (Appendix 4) can be used (in whole or part) or modified for future research projects to track trends in public behavior and knowledge about urban/urban-rural interface forest ecosystem services.

In presenting the following management strategies, we acknowledge that what we have produced does not constitute a truly participatory form of planning. Direct public input concerning any particular plan is not an outcome of this project, and clearly direct public involvement in planning and decision making is not occurring as a result of consulting this document. However, it is our hope that the strategies we present following this introduction will offer useful suggestions for urban natural resource professionals to become more familiar with public attitudes about urban forest ecosystem services and management and potentially lead ultimately to increased engagement with public stakeholders. What we provide herein are general strategies that may need tailoring or adjustment to meet particular needs of different areas and natural resource management challenges.

The next section, the discussion of management strategies, begins with a decision making tool to help managers assess what level of public participation may be most appropriate for their situation. We are hopeful that the material and strategies we present and discuss in the following pages will be useful for agencies and natural resource professionals who have not historically engaged in substantial participatory management and planning and are motivated to improve public participation. The strategies and information enclosed should also be helpful for natural resource professionals who are already engaging the public in urban natural resources management and planning. For the professional new to public participation, the information and strategies discussed will provide useful guidance on ways to successfully incorporate public attitudes and perceptions into management strategies. For those more experienced with inclusive planning and management, we hope that the information provided may augment your current efforts, and that perhaps some of the strategies we suggest may stimulate innovation in your existing strategies.