The biodiversity of urban and peri-urban forests and the diverse ecosystem services they provide as socio-ecological systems

Urban and peri-urban forests provide a variety of ecosystem service benefits for urban society. Recognising and understanding the many human-tree interactions that urban forests provide may be more complex but probably just as important to our urbanised society. This paper introduces four themes that link the studies from across the globe presented in this Special Issue: (1) human-tree interactions; (2) urban tree inequity; (3) carbon sequestration in our own neighbourhoods; and (4) biodiversity of urban forests themselves and the fauna they support. Urban forests can help tackle many of the "wicked problems" that confront our towns and cities and the people that live in them. For urban forests to be accepted as an effective element of any urban adaptation strategy, we need to improve the communication of these ecosystem services and disservices and provide evidence of the benefits provided to urban society and individuals, as well as the biodiversity with which we share our town and cities. © 2016 by the authors

The Urban Forest and Ecosystem Services: Impacts on Urban Water, Heat, and Pollution Cycles at the Tree, Street, and City Scale

n/

Children's experiences as hospital in-patients : voice, competence and work

There is growing evidence that children's subjective interpretations of events may differ significantly from those of adults; yet children's voices and children's knowledge regarding hospital care remain largely unexplored.This study was undertaken to determine what counted as voice in work with hospitalised children, and explore children's subjective interpretations and knowledgeas in-patients.Influenced by critical ethnographic methods, the study was undertaken in two phases with children who had been in-patients in one English tertiary referral children's ward.Phase one involved reconnaissance with 6 children to explore what mattered most to them regarding their in-patient experience. Phase two involved field work undertaken over six months, on a nephro-urology ward, and included in-depth work with nine children.Voice became manifest in what the children said but also through the non-verbal mechanisms of resisting and being silent. In this study, the children chose which voice to present when they participated in the study and that voice was accepted without question.Inductive analysis revealed that the children shared the experience of being in trouble. While they were in-patients, recognition of their competence was fluid=andcontingent on structural and material factors. When their competence was denied, some of the children fought hard to re-establish their claim as authentic and knowledgeable individuals. However, while all of the children who participated in this study, regardless of ability, were capable commentators on their experiences, their capacity to work in their own best interests was sometimes challenged. During these episodes, they relied heavily on supportive adults. In the absence of supportive adults they often became marooned and subject to routinised care