Defining Urban Forestry and Arboriculture in Malaysia

Abstract

The concept of urban forestry emerged in the 1960s in North America, however in most Asian countries including Malaysia, this concept arrived in the 1980s or perhaps even later. Taking the concept of urban forestry and arboricul-ture into real-world practice in Malaysia was brought by the Twinning Programme: Multipurpose Forestry in a Changing Society, a Denmark-Malaysia collaboration funded by DANIDA during 2003ü2006. Many initiatives were brought into real-isation in terms of the scholarly research of urban forestry and arboriculture and in terms of practices among the practitioners, academicians and researchers. Many important milestones from this Twinning Programme were achieved, notably the 1st Arborist Certification in Malaysia in 2005 and training of personnel from Malaysia into the higher education organisations (PhD studies) in Denmark. This Twinning Programme further generated studies on urban forestry and arboriculture which later were branched out into varieties of scope e.g., environment, social, health and well-being, etc. üThere is still a lack of research from other perspectives such as the valuation (economics), governance, urban soil, carbon sequestration and tree risk management in Malaysia. New knowledge in the context of tropical urban forestry and arboriculture needs to be developed and practised. It is therefore necessary and timely to develop bachelor programmes in urban forestry and arboriculture at the higher education level in Malaysia.