From Conservation to Connection: Exploring the Role of Nativeness in Shaping People’s Relationships with Urban Trees

Deciding whether to plant native or non-native trees in public urban green spaces is becoming complex and conflicted, and decisions purely based on biotic nativeness are likely to be hamstrung as climate change and rising urban heat push many native species beyond their natural ranges. Importantly, tree selection considerations by urban planners and environmental managers will have to move beyond a primary focus on securing conservation and ecological outcomes, to elucidate and engage with a growing interest in the socio-cultural values and services of urban trees. Building on emerging theoretical perspectives, this place-based study explores the role that perceptions of nativeness have in shaping people’s relationships with native and non-native urban trees and landscapes in an Australian city. Nativeness was associated with a range of subjective meanings including cultural identity, political expression, nature connection, desirable and undesirable traits, and environmental and cultural compatibility. Our findings emphasise that the ways in which urban trees and green spaces are valued and experienced is likely mediated by people’s perceptions of nativeness and its importance relative to other attributes. To provision and sustain green spaces that meet the diverse needs and preferences of urban publics, planners and managers need to elucidate and incorporate the nuanced, place-based and multifaceted subjective meanings of nativeness into urban greening decision-making and practice.