Tree Action Priorities

Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2020 08:50:55 -0400
From: Daniel Buckles <dbuckles@sas2.net>

Trees, a tree canopy and access to Greenspace are a vital part of our neighborhood. While the City has made some progress in protecting and planting trees, we’re not where we need to be to ensure a healthy urban forest for Ottawa’s future.

Use this link to a blog on priority tree actions prepared by Daniel Buckles and Jennifer Humphries, with contributions from Heather Pearl, for the City-wide network “Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability” (CAFES). It offers Observations and examples relevant to our neighborhood and practical steps you can take to protect and plant trees, or influence policy in the city.

Warm Regards,

Daniel Buckles

An extract of the summary from that blog post:

5. In Short

Ottawa’s urban forest is the vital green infrastructure we need to offer protection from heat island effects and local flooding that will only worsen as the current climate emergency deepens. Trees in the city support human health and the quality of life for everyone. They sequester carbon, clean the air and water, cool our homes, support habitat and biodiversity, provide food, and foster recreation and education.

Protecting and planting trees is a direct and cost- effective action we can take as a municipality and as residents to do our part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (through energy savings), draw down historic emissions (by capturing carbon) and adapt to the local effects of climate change (reducing risk of heat islands and local flooding).

Trees are with us for the long term, creating and maintaining a healthy, sustainable city. They link us to our past and point toward our future.

Simply put, to ensure the future of Ottawa’s urban forest, our priorities must be to:

  1. Protect existing trees and woodlands
  2. Plant native trees and shrubs to increase tree canopy and native biodiversity
  3. Achieve equitable and socially inclusive distribution of the benefits of trees
  4. Enable community tree stewardship
  5. Improve outcome monitoring and reporting