Community Engagement in Urban Forestry: Exploring Barriers and Strategies for Inclusion of Recent Racialised Immigrants in Toronto’s Urban Forest

The correlation of inequitable urban forest distribution with race and income is well-documented. Yet, despite the recognition of the underrepresentation of racialised communities, Canada’s urban forestry sector is slow to address access disparities to information and engagement opportunities, which hinders the development of a comprehensive understanding of factors perpetuating inequity and undermines efforts to foster inclusivity and diversity in urban green spaces. Though many North American cities are aware of increasing racial, cultural, and ethnic diversity, little research has been done to explore how racialised immigrant populations are engaged (or not) in urban forest planning and practice. The current thesis takes a qualitative case study approach to fill the literature gap on community engagement in urban forestry. Using Toronto as a case study, it explores factors influencing inclusion in this sector. In this manuscript-based thesis, Chapter Two focuses on urban forestry organisations and their partners using the lens of colourblindness, to highlight the systems and structures in place that lead to the token inclusion and inadvertent exclusions of racialised immigrant communities. Chapter Three focuses on group discussions with recent immigrants to show that culture, systemic issues, and the natural environment influence an immigrant’s engagement with the urban forest. The chapter highlights the critical need of information and communication networks to influence recent immigrant engagement in this context. Chapter Four investigates the motivations of organisations that engage low-income, racialised, and immigrant communities, including practitioners in the conservation, community service and grassroots sectors. Here, I show that organisations frame their practices based on their objectives and highlight the importance of collaborative partnerships among sectors, leveraging expertise from each other and facilitating holistic and inclusive community engagement programmes in marginalised and racialised communities. Combined, the three chapters underline the nuanced difference between engagement with or in the urban forest and the many paths to engagement. Overall, my work highlights the need to use interdisciplinary and intersectional approaches in urban forestry and recommends the use of race as an analytical category, not as a descriptor variable. As well, it demonstrates the need to unpack power differentials among and within urban forestry stakeholders versus those excluded from the process.

Department dc:contributor.department

Forestry

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Tenneti, Ambika

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Klenk, Nicole
• Kant, Shashi

• Community Engagement
• Immigrant Integration
• Information and Communication
• Racial Colourblindness
• Urban Forest Governance
• Urban Political Ecology

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1807/144873

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:utoronto.scholaris.ca:1807/144873