In the next decade, the Asia-Pacific region, which does not yet have an urban society, will become predominantly urbanized. For the first time in its history, rapid growth of population and its concentration in cities around, constitutes the crucial element affecting the long-term outlook for the people in the region and beyond. For better or for worse, the development of contemporary societies in the region will depend largely on understanding and managing the growth of cities.
The greatest challenge is the current "urbanization of poverty". In resource-poor cities, and in poor neighbourhoods even in wealthier cities, the most threatening environmental problems are usually those close to home. Already straining under the pressures of meeting their peoples' needs for housing, jobs and basic services, cities must also address the environmental and social consequences of rapid urbanization. Consequently, urban development must be a major concern in development cooperation for the next decade.
The present trend towards urbanization in the Asia-Pacific region generates many unintended impacts on rural areas. If only for this reason, rural development policy, including forestry, needs to take into account the negative and positive aspects of urbanization.
This working paper examines the present status and the outlook of urban forestry in the Asia-Pacific region. The paper is deliberately biased towards urban forestry: (i) in poorer cities and vulnerable groups; (ii) in a more restricted scope, i.e. trees within the built environment and (iii) promising innovative approaches relevant to the region.
In this paper "urban greening" is used as a comprehensive term, comprising all urban vegetation management (green spaces or urban vegetated areas) including farming and forestry. Urban forestry is defined as the planning and managing of trees, forests and related vegetation to create or add value to the local community in an urban area.
Multipurpose urban forestry with a focus on the poor is still in its infancy. However, many local initiatives are evolving rapidly. Although many cities in the region have some kind of urban forestry programmes, little technology transfer, research and information exchange occurs in the region. International forestry circles are conspicuously inactive in urban development.
The urban forest is one of the resources of an urban area; it is part of the urban infrastructure and is integral to the quality of life of its residents. In poorer cities, urban trees and forests can directly meet basic needs including food, fuel, fodder and timber - products which remain important for the poor in many developing country cities. Social benefits of urban trees and forests relate to health, employment, education, recreation, aesthetic and landscape benefits, and community strengthening. Environmental services of urban forests are climate and air quality improvement, energy savings, reduction of global warming and carbon dioxide, noise abatement, water use, reuse and conservation, soil conservation, solid waste and land reclamation, and nature conservation - wildlife habitat and biodiversity. The relative importance of these functions varies for each city.
Major challenges to urban forest development are: inadequate appreciation of the economic value of the urban forest; institutional deficits including insufficient local participation; ecological and technical constraints of the urban environment; legislation, tenure and custom; sustaining funds for urban forests, and above all limited integration of forestry in urban planning and development.
Basic requirements for sustained urban forestry development include strengthening local capacity, securing social and political support, an appropriate legal framework, institutional flexibility, technical viability and environmental sustainability and financial and economic viability.
The contention of this review is that integrating natural and built environments is a key element of the strategy of making the region's cities more liveable. As the pressure to further develop open space continues, existing and future urban forests will take on an ever-increasing role as a necessary component of the urban landscape. In the search for making cities more sustainable for the 21st century, the outlook for urban forestry is promising.
Better integration of multipurpose urban trees and shrubs in urban design and urban development initiatives can significantly improve the quality of life, especially of vulnerable groups. To develop and sustain urban trees and forests in low income cities of developing countries, forestry must initially focus on meeting immediate needs for basic necessities. This can be best achieved by multiple resource use.
The overall benefits of urban forests are such, that it can be predicted that urban forest resources in the year 2010 will be regarded as a vital component of the urban infrastructure essential in maintaining a liveable and sustainable environment in the region. Forestry and related professionals can actively facilitate local initiatives to mitigate urban problems or risk to become a marginal professional group in development cooperation in the region in the next millennium.
Basic recommendations with regard to boosting urban forestry in the region are: (i) strengthening of rural-urban linkages; (ii) supporting and strengthening local urban forestry initiatives, especially those of vulnerable groups; (iii) allocating significant resources to multipurpose urban forestry (iv) protecting, rehabilitating and planting urban forests; (v) building into monitoring and evaluation systems of healthy cities urban greening related indicators; (vi) integrating urban forestry into urban development projects, (vii) facilitating long term sustainability of urban forestry investment; (viii) encouraging the use of a wide variety of multipurpose species; (ix) giving greater priority to research into participatory urban forestry and its functions; validation of urban forests, multipurpose trees and shrubs; (x) greatly increasing training opportunities and developing curricula and training materials; (xi) providing multiple sources of finance with strong participation of the private and non-governmental sector; (xii) incorporating tree budgets into regular municipal budget lines; (xiii) promoting the creation of urban greening research and development networks (national and regional level).
In all the above areas, external support would be valuable whether among developing countries or between them and traditional donors and technical assistance agencies in the developed world. The development cooperation community is therefore encouraged to extend its forestry sector attention significantly beyond rural areas towards the growing cities.
