Who Volunteers to Steward the Urban Forest in New York City? An analysis of participants in MillionTreesNYC planting events.

This paper presents results from research on volunteer stewards at the MillionTreesNYC tree planting events in spring 2010, which were sponsored by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and the New York Restoration Project, a non-profit organization focused on enhancing underused green spaces throughout NYC. Although recent academic and policy studies have focused on the increasingly wide range of organizations working as stewards to conserve, manage, monitor, advocate for, or educate the public about the local environment, it remains unclear how individual citizens get involved in local stewardship initiatives. Such knowledge is needed by professionals working to manage environmental stewardship programs and by anyone seeking to understand better how the human infrastructure of environmental stewardship is established and maintained.