Mayor’s tree-planting tour seeks to put spotlight on canopy

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/09/2020 (1458 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the middle of a tree-planting tour, Mayor Brian Bowman noted Winnipeg is still far from ensuring the number of new trees added to its canopy each year exceeds the number lost.

The mayor planted one tree in each of the city’s 15 wards Wednesday, while urging others to join the civic One Million Tree Challenge. The program aims to have a million new trees planted by the time Winnipeg’s population reaches one million people, which is expected around 2040.

“It’s a long-term challenge for a reason, recognizing that we can’t completely reverse the tide overnight,” said Bowman.

“Right now, we’ve got about 300,000 trees on public lands. If we can get a million (new) trees… that’s going to make a huge, positive difference.”

The public service estimates about 50,000 trees must be planted each year to reach the one-million mark, once program donations and events have ramped up over the next few years. The effort could cost the city and its partners about $43 million over two decades, as each tree can cost between $5 and $750.

The city currently loses thousands of trees each year, largely due to disease and invasive species. Officials removed 8,588 trees from public and private property in 2019 (5,657 due to Dutch elm disease), city spokeswoman Julie Horbal Dooley wrote in an emailed statement.

During the same year, the city planted 1,434 trees in parks and on boulevards. To date, an additional 3,700 have been planted through the One Million Tree Challenge.

Bowman said the overall loss of thousands of trees each year sparked the program.

“We know that invasive species like Emerald ash borer and Dutch elm disease are decimating our tree canopy. And if we don’t treat that challenge with urgency and as a sustained community effort, the city is going to look a lot less green in the decades to come,” he said.

The mayor said about one-third of the city’s trees could be lost to Dutch elm disease over the next century, while Emerald ash borer is expected to decimate local ash trees within the next 15 to 20 years.

Oly Backstrom, an Earl Grey resident, said such loss is already apparent in his neighbourhood, where many trees have already been removed or marked for destruction.

Backstrom said the city appears to be at an “escalation point” toward the rapid decimation of the tree canopy.

“What I would like our city to work on now is to slow the death of the remaining elms and to expedite the replacement of our trees (in ways) that diversify our urban forest and make them more robust to hold up against disease,” he said.

Backstrom said he realizes the price of that effort could prove an obstacle but believes tree preservation should be a priority.

“I think the city still needs, basically, a strategic plan to get back on top of the loss of their urban forest… and I’m not sure if the million tree challenge really addresses that,” he said.

Bowman said Winnipeg’s forestry branch is working to increase the diversity of the trees planted to better prepare for invasive species.

When asked if he would move to increase the forestry budget to speed up tree removals and replacements, the mayor said that will be considered.

“I don’t think anybody denies that we need to keep doing more. So we’ll take a look at our multi-year budgets and we’ll see what we can do,” said Bowman.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @joyanne_pursaga