I agree with Matthew on this. These landscape crews are caught in the middle between several different, and most likely, unstated, management objectives. Lack of communication and understanding between ecologists, landscape architects, urban planners, and landscape maintenance staff is a persistent problem and we could do more by reaching out to these professions. After all, for all of our musings and research on ecological function, these are the people, who are most directly challenged to put something real on the ground, at least in human-dominated landscapes. The other thing is that management plans need to be established that clearly articulate functional goals for each managed landscape in question. Is it aesthetics, recreation, or ecological function, or a combination of the above? Whatever it is, it should be written down and communicated to all stakeholders. This problem, as most problems, revolves around unstated goals and perceptions and a lack of communication. Demonizing one party or another is totally unproductive behavior and is counter to effective decision making.
Robert McGuinn
