Narratives on cutting down trees on private land. A comparison of urban and rural municipalities in Poland using the Q-deliberation method

Increased development in rural and urban areas leads to a decrease in tree cover and reduces the ecosystem services that trees provide. Municipal authorities must consider managing trees on private land to ensure that residents have access to trees and green spaces. In doing so, they must frequently confront conflicting stakeholder views, which are driven by diverse public and private interests and impacted by the type of landscape in question. In this paper, we investigate stakeholders’ views on tree removing on privately owned land, as represented by narratives about tree management in urban and rural municipalities, to assess whether a deliberation process can alter these views. We rely on the theory of wicked problems and apply two measurements by Q-method in two municipalities in Poland (N = 38 in both cases), with an intervening deliberation session between each measurement. The results reveal that, before the deliberation, narratives were divided mainly around the issue of where the right to decide about tree removing should reside. This division was visible in both municipalities, but was particularly pronounced in the rural one. The division was sharp and straightforward, and was linked with deeply shared values. After the deliberation, the narratives shifted and a new division emerged around the issue of how to organize the decision-making process and decision-making criteria. Moreover, after deliberation, the narratives of participants from both municipalities coalesced to a much greater extent than previously. The results prove that, although wicked problems do not have unambiguous solutions, deliberation processes can influence views and are instrumental in facilitating better informed tree management.