Trees, People and the Built Environment

The Institute of Chartered Foresters and the Forest Ecology Special Interest Group invite urban foresters, landscaping professionals, architects, environment managers and more to come together to deliver against sustainable development targets and aim for progress towards a carbon-neutral world. The recent global pandemic has exposed many systemic weaknesses in urban environments, and this event offers a platform for greater understanding and exploration as researchers from across the globe showcase their work in urban greenspace.

There will be a range of additional content provided in the months leading up to and following the main event, and a variety of innovative ways to engage with your fellow delegates and conference speakers. Make sure to come along to the Forest Ecology SIG’s dedicated session on Urban Trees and Biodiversity.

Book your ticket today and play your part in shaping the future development of urban environments.

Urban trees and biodiversity session

As partners of this event, the Forest Ecology Special Interest Group have their own dedicated session on the theme of urban trees and biodiversity.

It’s often said that urban trees are good for biodiversity and it’s one of the reasons given for planting them in urban areas. Supporting urban nature can have conservation value, but also provides many benefits to those living in urban areas. But how much do we know about the impact of having trees in urban areas in supporting biodiversity? How can we plan and design our towns and cities to support biodiversity and what is the role of urban trees within this? This session will discuss new, international research exploring the qualities of cities and greenspaces which support biodiversity, and the benefits of retaining nearby nature for urban residents.

The speakers for this session are:

• Dr Corey Callaghan, 
  Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research
  Corey T. Callaghan is a Marie-Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in Leipzig, Germany. His research aims to understand patterns and processes of biodiversity in space and time, with a special emphasis on urban biodiversity. His work predominantly uses large global citizen science datasets such as eBird and iNaturalist. He has shown the importance of tree cover for bird diversity both within cities broadly and within urban greenspaces.

• Rachel Oh,
  PhD Student, University of Queensland
  Rachel is passionate about interdisciplinary research, and works to deliver solutions to mitigate the biodiversity crisis. She is interested in people’s experiences of nature and connection to nature, and how that delivers health and wellbeing outcomes and translates into environmentally protective attitudes and behaviour. Prior to her PhD at the University of Queensland, she worked in the National Parks Board of Singapore.

Who should attend this event?

This event encourages cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration, and invites:

• All built and natural environment professionals
• All built and natural environment academics and students
• Social scientists and health professionals
• Local councillors and decision makers in local/municipal government
• All those engaged in delivery on the ground – tree officers, highway engineers, planning officers, urban design leaders, sustainability officers, landscape architects, not for profits, local communities, maintenance departments, etc.
• Environmental economists

Registration

You can register for the event below, and find out more about the speakers and programme on the conference website.

Register here