When doing something for the community, the community should be involved. In the ideal world, all interested and affected stakeholders would be involved and contribute to the overall management and well-being of the community. But sometimes the world isn’t ideal. Even agreeing on the simplest of things can involve a convoluted process of balancing and juggling. The very things that make our communities unique also make them hard to manage. And then there is the noise, sulking, letters to the editor, and conversations with councillors on the golf course. Local politics is indeed a messy thing. But what if the thing you are trying to manage could last longer than the community? When selecting trees for a community, we have a conundrum.

The average person is likely to move houses 4 times if they live in Europe, but 11 times if they live in America and up to 13 times if they live in Australia or New Zealand. Statistically, most of the moving is done before the person reaches the age of 34. And after 65, most people stay in the same house for the next 20 years. Compared to trees, which are literally rooted to the ground, people pass through their respective communities like passengers moving through a transit lounge. They arrive, try to get comfortable, maybe get comfortable, and then leave. People, and even some of the buildings they live in, are temporary fixtures.

‘We are asking a group of people that won’t exist, to select trees for a group of people that doesn’t yet exist, about something that might not exist’

So, when it comes to asking the community what tree or trees they would like in their street, or outside their house, we find ourselves in a situation where we are asking people who probably won’t be living in that house or on that street when the tree has reached its potential. Assuming that the tree will survive to reach its potential – but we’ll save that for another day. Due to the potential life span of a tree, when it comes to community consultation, we are asking a group of people that won’t exist, to select trees for a group of people that doesn’t yet exist, about something that might not exist. Asking such a thing would seem illogical, and it would be hard to disagree. But when it comes to consulting with the community about what trees they would like, this is what we are doing. This is the community consultation conundrum.

But there is more to the consultation process to consider than just the temporary nature of the inhabitants. When seeking advice on complex problems, we consult with subject matter experts. Engineers, geotechnical specialists, medical practitioners, accountants, whatever. We find the people who have the training and the relevant experience. We present the problem to them, and they, in turn, give us their considered unbiased opinion. Their advice is based on knowledge and training. But this is often not the case with community consultation for tree planting. Tree selection for a growing future in an ever-changing environment is a complex multidimensional problem. When we engage local citizens, we are unlikely to be asking people who have the relevant training or experience.

Ask and you shall receive, but be careful with the results. We know that the most vocal responders tend to be people with a particular interest, viewpoint, or an alternate motivation. And because we are inviting individuals on a voluntary basis, the feedback is unlikely to reflect the views of the entire community. To counter this [the self-selection bias], we manage the situation. We customise the questions or control the scope of discussion. To create validity of the results, we modify what is on offer and who it is targeted to. And then we apply strategies to the feedback to make the data useful. It’s a fine line between asking, directing, and responding with caution; the community consultation conundrum is complex.

As difficult problems go, selecting trees to keep a community happy is always going to be awkward. We accept that we are unlikely to get it right for everyone in the current community, but we hope that we might get it right for people who follow, or maybe the ones who come along after that.