Brunswick Park Arboretum
Community led Arboreta as a long term strategy for tree diversity
Brunswick Park is a Level I community led arboretum located in Wednesbury, Brunswick, a town residing near Birmingham in the United Kingdom. Established in 2020, the arboretum showcases trees located in the Brunswick City Park that are led and managed in a collaborative effort between the Friends of Brunswick Park and government entities. The Friends of Brunswick Park (FOBP) and local advocates worked to get the park accredited in an effort to address tree health and lack of species diversity throughout the city. To start, volunteers conducted a tree inventory through Curio xyz, a publicly available virtual tree labeling software. (Figure 1)
Figure 1- Brunswick Park tree inventory created by volunteers on Curio xyz mobile app.
What started as a project for one park is quickly growing into a network of tree planting and advocacy throughout Birmingham. “People really didn’t realize what we had accomplished until after we were accredited,” said Ian McDermott, Chairman of FOBP. “It wasn't until after getting accredited did [stakeholders] realize ‘this is worth getting involved with, this is a good thing. So it’s snowballing, hopefully.” McDermott is hopeful that Brunswick Park will achieve a Level II status in the coming years as the park increases tree diversity through community tree plantings.
Figure 2 - Jill Turner (Trustee of FOBP) and Donna Martin planting trees in Brunswick Park.
Figure 3- Outreach booth led by Friends of Brunswick Park
FOBP tree advocacy doesn't stop there. Volunteers are branching out to the nearly 600 other parks in the region to coordinate tree plantings and help others earn ArbNet accreditation in an effort to increase community management and tree diversity throughout Birmingham.
“We’re looking to use this park as a long term model for other local parks, led by the community, to get additional tree species,” added McDermott.
Beyond planting trees in parks, Friends of Brunswick are looking to expand and move to mass scale plantings in residential areas. “To maximize ecosystem services, trees need to exist where people are, not just the places they visit,” said McDermott. Friends of Brunswick are hoping to see an exponential growth in community led arboretums in the region and use Brunswick Park as a model, and are well on their way to becoming a major tree planting organization of Birmingham.
You can learn more about Friends of Brunswick Park here.
