PC senior completes capstone research on municipal tree ordinances

PC senior completes capstone research on municipal tree ordinances

Anna West

By Kathryn Dover

Presbyterian College senior Anna West’s research addresses a simple question – but her work reveals an exciting new future.

West is completing her political science capstone to answer her research question: why do some municipalities have tree ordinances?

“The reason that I wanted to look into this is I am an advocate for local sustainability and local government,” West said. “One of the biggest concerns right now on a global scale is we’re losing urban tree coverage, urban forest, and, so, I kind of wanted to explore why municipalities have tree ordinances in an effort to understand how we can get more municipalities to have tree ordinances.”

West, a Dacula, Ga., resident majoring in biology and political science, has always advocated for trees and sustainability.

“I think there’s a lot of good that can come from tree ordinances,” she said. “There’s not a lot of research in the field right now, so I’m excited to be contributing to something new.”

West randomly sampled 117 municipalities nationwide for her research and mainly looked at current laws from 2012 onward. She focused specifically on cities that already have comprehensive sustainability plans.

“My dependent variable is whether or not a municipality has a tree ordinance, and I’m comparing that to the partisanship of the municipality, the socioeconomic status of the municipality, and then I came up with a measure for institutional support for sustainability,” she said. “Basically, my thought process was if a government institution is more invested in sustainability, they’ll be more likely to have a tree ordinance.”

She then compared whether or not a municipality has a tree ordinance to those variables, also considering population size, forms of local government, and geographical locations. Through this, she examined the factors driving tree ordinances.

“I’ve really looked at more the drivers of tree ordinances,” West said. “Is it because the government institution wants to adopt a tree ordinance because it will benefit them financially? Is it because of a general interest in sustainability? Is it because they have the money to do so? Is it because there are outside groups that are pushing for tree ordinances?”

West is currently analyzing her research.

“I hope the findings will be able to give, both from the academic perspective as well as the practitioner perspective, a little bit more insight into why municipalities make sustainability decisions broadly but also specifically tree ordinances and how that can be applied for the future, how can we get more municipalities to adopt tree ordinances,” West said. “They’ve been proven to be effective, but there’s just so much variation as to whether or not a municipality has one or why they’ve chosen to adopt one.”

West has accepted a job as a lab scientist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection in the Atlanta metro area.

“My long-term goals are local government sustainability, but I do think that state level environmental protection is a great place to start,” she said. “I’m really excited to use my biology degree and my political science degree.”

Initially, West was interested in PC’s pharmacy program but decided to try the dual degree program in her sophomore year. In addition, she is carrying on a Blue Hose legacy: both her parents graduated from PC. She feels that PC has prepared her for her future career.

“I was interested in their pharmacy program and came in as a biology major, but I think my heart was somewhere else, and around my freshman year, I decided that advocacy for the environment is definitely my calling,” West said. “PC has prepared me for any job.

“I think there’s a lot to be said for a liberal arts education, but I have positioned myself with my biology and political science degrees to have both the expertise in policies and government and also the scientific expertise.”

West will present her findings on April 28, along with other students’ political science capstones.