The role of diverse cultural identities in the perceived value of urban forests in Melbourne, Australia, and implications for urban ecosystem research and practice

Abstract

Urban nature management is usually guided by the most common, frequently mentioned, or easily elicited perceptions expressed by a dominant cultural group. This is unlikely to encourage widespread community support or foster urban nature stewardship in the long run. Considering how people representing diverse cultural identities perceive the value of urban nature is key to meeting diverse community needs. In this study we explore how people not born in Australia, people who speak a language-other-than-English (LOTE), and people who self-identify as speaking a minority language, perceive the value of urban treed sites, trees at these sites, and the wildlife at these sites. We used an intercept questionnaire to collect empirical perception data, delivered in 12 different sites, including parks and streets, located in and near the Greater Melbourne Area, an ethno-culturally diverse urban area in the state of Victoria, Australia. We analyzed 1127 responses collected over 2 years using contingency- and regression-based procedures. We found that people who were not born in Australia rated the importance of treed sites and trees at these sites higher than other respondents, and LOTE respondents rated the importance of treed sites and trees at these sites lower than other respondents. Also, LOTE and some language minority respondents associated more psychological themes (i.e., stress reduction, feeling good) with treed sites than other respondents. These differences account for the influence of other cognitive, behavioral, and social-ecological context factors, such as nature relatedness, knowledge of trees, exposure to trees, demographics, and type of site (i.e., parks or streets). We discuss what these results mean for urban nature research with consideration of diverse cultural communities in cities, including integrating cultural diversity as a complement to the dominant consideration of socioeconomic patterns for understanding urban nature dynamics, accounting for conflicting values, and better communicating with and engaging these communities.