History of the term. During the early to mid 1970's, elm disease was ravaging the northeastern states. The people wanted something done by the federal government, and fast. Senators and Congressmen from several states, especially Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota passed a bill giving a large amount of money to help ease the spread of the tree disease. The agricultural research service said that naturally all the funds would come to them because the elm disease was an urban problem and they dealt with urban plant problems. The U. S. Forest Service said, not so fast, and said they took care of trees everywhere, so they should get the funds. A scramble for the funds went on until the "big" guys stepped in and said why not both. So the urban part would be for the one group and the forest part for the other group. To this day, few people not only do not know this story, but even fewer have thought about the name. We do know that several people tried to define the oxymoron but it never got settled. Few really cared so long as the money flowed. The use of it proves the lack of understanding of what of forest is. Forest are not a group of trees, especially a group of planted trees. Forest are systems, and you cannot plant a system! Forest are really natural systems made up of trees, associates and abiotic parts, connected in such highly ordered ways that so long as energy comes in, all members have equal opportunities to repeat. YOU CANNOT HAVE AN URBAN FOREST!!!! 33-47
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16 years ago