UCFF – Urban and Community Forestry Forum

Who are the Urban and Community Forestry Forum?

We are municipal tree care professionals.  The Urban and Community Forestry Forum holds monthly meetings and cover a wide variety of topics that affect the industry.  Who better to learn from than your peers?  We are educators, seasoned arborists and the new professional to the industry. We are the lifelong colleagues and friends you will meet along your journey.  We are an open book of knowledge and resources for you to call upon.  The roadblocks and problems you’re dealing with are important to everyone.  Most municipal foresters are confronted with the same problems every day. 

The meeting locations change from time to time.  UCFF meetings cater to everyone.  Some meetings are classroom style setting and others are in the field.  The meetings cover a wide range of topics of interest to municipal foresters, though other arborists are always welcome to join us. Some recent examples are GIS mapping, tree planting policies, tree hazard assessment, invasive insects, and wood utilization.  The speakers are usually researchers, consultants, commercial or municipal arborists, or nursery personnel. Sometimes we hear from other municipal staff such as engineers or human resource professionals. Vendors have also spoken about pertinent issues, though we try not to let the meetings become a venue for sales pitches. The Northeast Municipal Foresters are now considered the municipal branch of the Illinois Arborist Association, and Certified Arborists typically receive CEU’s for attending our presentations.

I invite you to join us and see for yourself.  Better yet, call up the forester from the town next to yours, or maybe your Park District staff, and invite them along as well. Our meeting calendar is posted on the IAA website, and you can get the announcements emailed directly to you by contacting April Toney at 877-617-8887.