Urban Environmental Stewardship and Civic Engagement: How Planting Trees Strengthens the Roots of Democracy,

摘要

For manyyears the environmental movement has questioned how it can engage stakeholders in campaigns in both the short and long term (Benedict and McMahon, 2006). Fischer, Svenden and Connolly's book explores this issue in New York reflecting on a survey of participants involved with the MillionTreesNYC programme. This monograph asks how this programme engaged the city's population, whether there was an identifiable demographic profile of participants and if these stakeholders had continued to engage with environmental projects in the long term. To contextu-alise these discussions the authors outline a historical narrative of environmental stewardship in the USA, and how New York compares with wider national profiles of engagement. Their aim throughout is to highlight the impact that communal bonds with local landscapes, as well as socio-economic and political barriers, have on people's long-term participation in environmental projects.