When residents in Cardiff, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh, York, and Camden sat down with researchers, they weren't just talking about trees. They were talking about the oak they passed on their morning walk, the memory of climbing a favorite branches as a child, and what they wanted their neighborhoods to feel like in twenty years.
Now, their ideas have helped create a free tool called Tree Value Visions that could change how UK cities plan their green spaces. The tool was developed by researchers from eight institutions including Aberystwyth University, Loughborough University, and the University of York, working alongside ordinary people in those five communities.
Urban trees do more than look nice. They shade sidewalks during heatwaves, help clean the air, and give city wildlife a place to live. The UK government has set a goal of planting trees on 30,000 hectares of land per year to tackle climate change and protect nature. But researchers say too often, decisions about trees focus only on numbers like how much carbon they store, rather than what they mean to the people who live near them.
Professor Jasper Kenter, who led the project at Aberystwyth Business School, said urban treescapes are places where people form memories and build relationships with their neighborhoods. "They shape how communities experience their neighborhoods, from everyday travel and leisure to longer-term connections with nature and place," he explained.
Tree Value Visions uses four different ways of thinking about urban trees. One sees trees as defining features of a place, another as useful resources, a third as parts of natural ecosystems, and a fourth as part of the shared community between humans and nature. The tool helps local councils and community groups explore these different perspectives together when deciding where to plant trees or how to care for existing ones.
The research builds on something called the IPBES Values Assessment, an international framework that highlights the many different ways people value the natural world. It also includes a free online training course available through The Open University.
The hope is that cash-strapped councils can use this ready-made approach to involve residents more easily in tree planning, saving time and money while making sure community voices are heard. The researchers published their work in the journal npj Urban Sustainability, with contributions from Forest Research, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and Ecologos Research.
For the communities who helped build it, Tree Value Visions is more than a planning tool. It's a way to make sure the trees in their cities keep providing not just environmental benefits, but the everyday moments of beauty and peace that make urban life bearable.