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Ecology Ottawa was at Environment and Climate Change Committee to speak to the latest installment of the City's Tree-Planting Strategy, as well as two related memos: a Tree Equity Analysis and a Tree Canopy Update. (Agenda here.) In short, we asked for much more data than staff is currently providing, as well as an acceleration of our canopy-strengthening efforts.
We invite you to read our delegation below, or watch it here.
Our Executive Director William van Geest addresses City Council's Environment and Climate Change Committee about the City's Tree-Planting Strategy on September 16.
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Thank you for the opportunity to address you.
We’re pleased to receive new information connected with the Tree Strategy—the Strategy’s latest installment, the canopy mapping, and the tree equity analysis.
There are several items that we’re pleased to see here. First of all, we applaud taking account of equity in upcoming planting. The numerous benefits of trees, including for human health, are well known, as is the correlation between low incomes in neighbourhoods and low tree cover.
We’re also pleased to see Miyawaki forests in the new strategy. This forestry approach has huge potential to accelerate forest growth, including in urban areas.
Finally, we’re pleased to see mention of “an upcoming assessment of ecosystems services, including carbon sequestration” in conjunction with a “Forest Resource Inventory project,” as mentioned in the GHG inventory. This will help us account for trees’ value in our city. The city of Toronto, for example, calculated that its urban forest “contributes over $55 million annually in ecosystem services, including $8.3 million in energy savings, $4.0 million in gross carbon sequestration, $37.9 million in pollution removal, and $4.8 million in avoided runoff.”
We do have several concerns with the Strategy and associated memos, however.
To begin with, we’re missing lots of data. I’ll begin with inventory issues. The report observes that “on average, Forestry Services plants 88,000 trees each year through a variety of planting programs.” But the report only accounts for about 2,000 of these. So where are the other 86,000 trees going, and in what programs? And how has this number varied over the years? We know that planting was delayed by several months after the derecho in 2022; how many trees fewer were planted then, for example?
The inventory also describes overall canopy decline in the urban area, but we’re missing some basic information here too. If we’re planting 88,000 trees per year, how many are we losing? What are the causes of this loss? The canopy memo also promises that “members of Council will also receive ward-specific information sheets summarizing tree canopy data.” Will this information also be released to the public? If not, why not? These are all basic issues surrounding our tree canopy, and I can think of no reason why to withhold them.
Then there’s the Tree Planting Strategy. This latest installment asserts that “the goal is to increase canopy cover in the priority areas”: but by how much, and by what time? And furthermore, that the plan is “to scale up tree planting”; by how much, and over what time?
And then there’s the Tree Equity Analysis. We have scores for eight priority and short-term action areas. Why not share the data for all 201 neighbourhoods? And what’s the basis for distinguished between “short-term action areas” and “priority areas”?
This isn’t merely a question of transparency; it’s also about how you make decisions and approve proposed actions. We urge you to ask for this information.
There’s another strange aspect of the equity analysis: that canopy goals were “adjusted for building density,” to account for plantable space. In other words, we’re lowering our targets where there are more buildings. But this seems backwards: if there are more buildings, there are more people, and thus a greater need for trees. Why lower the target?
Finally, our perennial objection to the Tree-Planting Strategy: it’s moving too slowly. We know that climate change will increase extreme weather, which will in turn threaten our tree canopy. After the derecho in 2022, Forestry Services couldn’t plant trees for months because it was cleaning up downed trees. We need to aim for better than 40 percent canopy coverage to achieve this goal—and currently our urban canopy is actually declining. Extreme weather also means we’ll need more trees, whether to cool neighbourhoods, absorb stormwater, or strengthen the ecosystem. But it takes decades for trees to realize their ecosystem benefits. We need to treat the climate and biodiversity emergencies with urgency.
The solutions are clear. First, involve the community. The report acknowledges that “there are many community and environmental organizations, groups, and individual residents with a keen interest, passion, and knowledge about the urban forest.” Ottawans want to help, and they can do so cheaply, quickly, and flexibly. For starters, the promised “focused engagement session with local tree and urban forest related community groups and organizations” should be a working group that meets regularly.
Second, invest. The last UFMP update cited lack of resources multiple times as cause for slowness. Budget 2026 is being developed at this moment. Trees offer a massive return on investment. Why aren’t we reaping this opportunity?
Thank you.
