Reframing Success in Afforestation: MillionTrees NYC as a case study

Keywords: urban forestry, afforestation, urban ecology, environmental justice
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Many cities are turning to afforestation—planting trees in historically unforested areas—as a mode of increasing resilience to climate change. However, urban forests also reflect and reproduce urban inequities: distributions of canopy cover correlate with racial and economic divides, unevenly disseminating their ecological benefits. As such, afforestation offers cities a critical opportunity to reorganize the interfaces between their residents and the environment and address long-standing structural injustice. Few studies have examined long-term outcomes of urban afforestation; the effects that planting methodologies and site histories have on the success of afforestation are largely unclear. This study aims to locate the interplay of ecological processes and the urban dynamics affecting forests to develop place-based analyses for what constitutes afforestation success. We examine 10 experimental afforestation plots established with the NYC Million Trees Initiative in 2009, which have been monitored for tree survivorship, invasive herbaceous species cover, tree canopy cover, and soil characteristics. We also conduct interviews with parks management and community organizations to develop place-based understandings of land use histories, park management, community interactions, and urban pollution. After 10 years, we find high variability in ecological success: tree survivorship ranged from 13% to 54%, and was negatively correlated to average invasive species cover, which ranged from 2% to 72%. In locating the factors producing such variation, this study aims to understand urban forests both in their utility as urban greening projects and their capacity to shape and be shaped by environmentally unjust infrastructures.