Urban Forests: Review of Canada's Forest Strategy for 2008 and beyond A discussion paper
1. RESUMÉ
A strategy for Canada's forests must somehow address the reality that over 80% of Canada's population now lives in urban areas and that these "urban forests" play an important role in the environmental, social and economic future of our country. Aside from the benefits that these forests afford to Canadian society, they themselves offer a window into the "forestry world" on a larger scale. In spite of the fact that the term "urban forestry" was coined by a Canadian, Canada may very well be the only country in the western world that seeks to exclude urban forests from its overall forest strategy, in spite of recent trends including its addition into the National Forest Strategy (2003-2008).
In terms of the traditional "industrial forest" which forms the sole focus of this Strategy, there does not appear to be enough recognition that the crisis that the industry is in requires leadership and a deep repositioning to respond to the challenges of this crisis.
2. GENERAL COMMENTS
2.1 Close to Home: The Need to Recognize Canada's Urban Forests While Canada may indeed be a "Forest Nation" it is difficult to construe its population as a "Forest People". Indeed, with 80% of the population now living in cities and built up areas, Canadians may well be considered to be an "Urban Forest People". Regrettably though there is no mention of this urban forest in Canada's Forest Strategy. Urban forests, now recognized as the "lungs of cities" go far beyond making our communities places of beauty and adding economic value to our homes and downtowns. They are crucial to our health, physical and mental. Urban forests:
- Reduce the "heat island effect" of hard surfaces in the city,
- Combat air pollution by knocking particulate matter out of the air stream (452 tonnes in Toronto in 1998)
- Reduce energy demand in buildings and houses by 15-25%
- Regulate the hydrology of our cities and minimize floods and droughts,
- Provide psychological benefits to Canadians. Studies done in the U.S. show that with all things equal, areas that are well treed show lower rates of domestic violence, graffiti and Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) in children. Hospital patients that are able to look out on treed landscapers show a faster healing time. Canada's urban forests are of tremendous importance to the mental health and stability of its families and communities.
In 2006, the United States Forest Service through its UFORE model actively measured the ecological services provided by Oakville's urban forests as being worth approximately $2.4 million/year.
Also, for many Canadians, their forest experiences will not come from national or provincial parks, wildlife reserves or game preserves. It will most likely come from their backyard tree, their neighbourhood ravine and their community park. Indeed, what happens in cities and towns can impact our understanding of what happens to and emerges from "natural forests" as populations expand. Urban forests are also frequently vectors for invasive insects and diseases - incorporating them as part of the Canadian Forest Strategy only makes sense.
Finally, there has been a noticeable lack of support for urban forest programs, with the exception of the municipal level. Federal horticultural research, shelterbelt programs, Arbor Days, Green Streets Canada and other urban forest programs have been withdrawn with municipalities left to pay for them out of the municipal tax levy or through corporate donations. This contrasts greatly with the rest of the western world, such as the United States where Urban Forests are addressed at a senior organizational level and receive direct federal funding of $35 million/year.
2.2 Canada's Industrial Forest: A Need for Deep Repositioning As optimistic and constructive as the Canadian Forest Strategy may appear, there is a feeling that the Strategy may be looking at the situation with "rose-coloured glasses". The competitiveness of the forestry sector is the key issue in the implementation of the strategy and it is clear from many indicators that the Canadian forestry sector is not in a healthy, competitive situation. This is evidenced in five main issues, namely:
- Forest plantations provide 30% of the world's wood consumption today, 50% in 2025 and 75% in 2050. Canada currently harvests less than 5% from plantations. The Strategy must point this out and seek to remedy it.
- Canada is still relying on one client country to sell a huge majority of its forest products: the USA. This must be addressed.
- Profitability in the Canadian forest sector is, unfortunately too closely related to a low exchange rate with the US dollar.
- Foreign investment by Canadian forest industry has been remarkably low thus providing no protection against a strong Canadian dollar (forest companies in Scandinavia are now producing over 30% of their production outside Scandinavia) and
- A recent World Bank study has shown that the world industrial forest sector is linked poorly with other commercial sectors (mining, energy etc.) - Canada is a very strong example of this
Furthermore, in spite of the fact that Canada has a great deal of third party certified forested lands, it is not clear whether there are clients who are willing to offset the costs of this certification. Similarly, reducing greenhouses gases within the industry is a great thing - however it will do nothing to increase the growth rate (sequestration rate) of our trees. Finally, not much is mentioned on the carbon side with regards to the Canadian Forest Strategy. Investments are being made by energy and other companies who are purchasing carbon credits. These credits could be invested in industrial and urban forests to change our wood supply profile from natural forest to plantation and to improve the urban forest.
3.0 SPECIFIC COMMENTS
How the Forest Strategy Can Improve Its Relevancy
Page 1 (Abstract): First, it is clear that the strategy will "be implemented by CCFM and its member jurisdictions." That may be a constraint that CCFM faces, in that its members generally do not have urban forests within their immediate jurisdictions. A mechanism must be found by which municipal governments could be made a part of the CCFM considerations. Second, as stated in, "Additional implementation mechanisms involving interested parties may be developed …" we encourage the CCFM to find a suitable mechanism by which to include urban forests, perhaps in the same spirit in which CCFM has found a way to include private woodlots and First Nations forests in the Strategy.
Page 5 end first paragraph - suggest a re-word from "… worlds fresh water, and provide habitat for more than 140,000 species of plants, animals and microorganisms and enhance our urban environments.
Page 7 Second paragraph suggests that previous "strategies took a broad and all-encompassing approach" but that this new one will be "to achieve greater focus on national priorities." This suggests that Urban Forests be identified as a 'national priority' - one that should be brought under the CCFM umbrella
Pages 7-8 outline the context for Sustainable Forest Management in Canada - it includes woodlot forests and Aboriginal concerns. It would be appropriate to add a paragraph here to address the urban forest. It is interesting that the urban forest itself links closely both to the Criteria and Indicators, most of which have a relationship to urban forests as well as to many of the Potential Issues Being Considered in Appendix A. Urban Forests need not have a separate section, if that was a concern to CCFM, but it could be added as a component to the separate issues.
Page 10 - the Vision statement is a good one that has been refined from our first one in 1992. Descriptive text connected should make it clear that the Urban Forest is a part of "Canada's Forests".
Page 10 and 11 list issues. Again, Urban Forests could be added as a separate issue or urban forest issues could be added to those in the list - or both. We dealt with Aboriginal and private forests in a similar way from 1992 - it does not matter how in the longer term - just the get it onto the agenda in a recognizable format.
Page 11 - second paragraph under VII Goals - add developing a means by which agencies responsible for urban forests may be added to the table.
Page 12 - first paragraph under VIII - add urban forest agencies to the list of identified participants.
Page 17 - Issues - 2 Forest Health - add that Urban Forests play an important role in forest health - providing reservoirs of biologically diverse trees and habitats that can be drawn upon to benefit regional forests; they may also be affected by events in regional forests, such as fire and insects, so should be part of national strategies.
Page 18 - Social stability and resilience - this is more economically oriented, but urban forests also contribute greatly to quality of life and social stability and must be mentioned
Page 19 - Climate change - a natural fit here in many aspects - location where 80% of citizens can make direct contributions and have a direct influence.
Page 19 - Forest biodiversity - urban forests offer a reservoir of genetic diversity - located in places in which they may be given more intensive protection. On the other hand, urban forests may be points of entry for foreign pests - so again, should be part of a national strategy.
Page 20 - International interests - It is always an impressive introduction to a country when one sees forests while landing at airports such as the black pines in Rome, the conifer forests in Frankfurt, hardwoods in Paris and Heathrow, plantations a Tokyo/Narita, eucalypts in Sydney and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence woodlots at Ottawa - these visual impressions are important - we owe it to ourselves to show our care for trees and forests - the forests start close to home. In international assistance, we should emphasize the knowledge base in urban forestry that may be applied to community or village forestry in aid-receiving countries.
Page 21 - Forest-related information and knowledge - -again a good fit with the interpretive potential of urban forests, for school programs and adult education.
Page 23 - Institutional Change - note that private forests are again mentioned - we could add a reminder about urban forests and the institutional change we request to enable the urban forest to be considered with the Canadian Strategy.
Pages 24-25 CCFM Framework of C & I - we do not need a separate category for urban forests, but we should acknowledge that the breadth of the C&I also provide a framework for urban forests to use as a basis for assessing those aspect relevant to urban forests.
4.0 IN CONCLUSION - THE REASONS FOR INCLUSION OF CANADA'S URBAN FORESTS
Canada's urban forests have had a long and varied history including:
- The establishment of the great city parks in the middle part of the 19th century. Including High Park (1873), Mont-Royal (1876) and Stanley Park (1886).
- Plantings of street side trees throughout the early parts of the 20th century with urban forests receiving its greatest recognition as a result of the spread of Dutch Elm Disease (DED) in the 1960's and 1970's making Canadians realize the aesthetic (and other) importance of their urban forests
- The coining of the term "urban forestry" in 1970 by the Canadian Erik Jorgensen
- From 1972-1979 the program, Un forêt pour les Hommes was created by the Canadian Forest Service in Ste. Foy, QC. resulting in the first international urban forest conference at Laval in 1979.
- The birth of a number of urban forest community programs at the municipal, provincial and national levels including: The Coalition to Save the Elms (Winnipeg), Ontario Shade Tree Council (now Ontario Urban Forest Council), Shade Tree Laboratory (U of T), Manitoba Ministry of Natural Resources DED Program, and Tree Canada
- The explosion of employment of urban foresters, technicians, arborists and entomologists at the urban forest level in the 1980's-
- Canadian Urban Forest Conferences from 1993 to present
- The inclusion of urban forestry in the Ontario Professional Foresters Act (2000)
- Formation of the CANUFNET urban forest list serve and the Canadian Urban Forest Network (2004)
- Inclusion of Urban Forests in the National Forest Strategy 2003-2008
The timing for the inclusion of urban forests in this latest Discussion Paper could not be better. We urge you to give urban forests their rightful place in the forestry family as we look towards 2008 and beyond.
Michael R. Rosen, R.P.F. President, Tree Canada July 18, 2007
With the collaboration of: Dr. Peter Murphy, Community Adviser Tree Canada and past Dean, Faculty of Forestry, University of Alberta Jean-Louis Kérouac, V-P Tecsult Inc. and Board Member Tree Canada Dorothy Dobbie, Publisher, Pegasus Publications, Chair Coalition to Save the Elms, Vice-Chair, Tree Canada Gerard Fournier, Community Adviser, Tree Canada and President, For Trees Co., Jack Radecki, Forester, Mt. Pleasant Cemeteries and Ontario Urban Forest Council Bohdan Kowalyk, Ontario Urban Forest Council Peter Dmytrasz, Ontario Urban Forest Council Pierre-Émile Rocray, Forester, City of Montréal John McNeil, Forester, City of Oakville Richard Ubbens, Forester, City of Toronto
For further information log on website :
https://treecanada.ca/en/programs/urban-forests/resources/urban-forests-are-part-canadas-forests-tree-canada-tells-cou/
