Austin Zeiderman

In general, the lessons contained within this report are a synthesis of insights gained by a range of people involved in community forestry work from 1989 to the present and observations and analyses conducted by the author. It begins with a problem statement tha presents the overarching question that this report set out to address. This is followed by a section that outlines the theoretical foundation of this study. It describes some of the sources that have influenced community forestry since its inception. In addition, it presents the Human Ecosystem Framework (HEF) and how it was applied in this case. The discussion of the HEF leads into a brief overview of the conceptual model that was used to guide this research. This is followed by a description of how the research was designed, conducted and analyzed.

The major body of the analysis is divided into two parts. First, the community forestry project is analyzed on three levels: 1) the city of Baltimore, 2) the relevant organizations, and 3) the participating neighborhoods. On each level, this report describes trends, relationships, and processes that hve directly influenced community forestry in practice. In other words, this section discusses the overarching context that community forestry has operated within. Second, this report presents a closer analysis of the community forestry project itself. This section deals with how community forestry is defined, how community forestry, and the problem of continuity in individual projects. In conclusion, this report offers a comparison (or generalization) that may reveal larger insights and one angle by which to understand the complexity that is urban community forestry. This is followed by a list of potential lines of inquiry for the future that could contribute to the continual development of understanding in this critical area of work.