Latest news with #2BillionTrees
Calgary Herald
3 days ago
- Politics
- Calgary Herald
Group pushes for faster action on growing city's tree canopy
More urgency is needed in expanding Calgary's tree canopy, a green cover that lags behind other Canadian cities, says an environmental group. Article content Article content While members of the Calgary Climate Hub say they're supportive of the city's efforts in adding trees to its leafy inventory, it should be moving faster and in a more even-handed way. Article content The city's northeast and downtown need to catch up to the rest of Calgary in its green numbers, said Heather Addy, a volunteer with the group, who notes the city has set a goal of doubling its canopy from the current 8 per cent coverage of city land by 2060. Article content Article content 'The northeast has a much lower tree canopy, it's below 8 per cent — some of those are new communities but some are not,' said Addy, a University of Calgary professor emeritus in bioscience. Article content Article content 'And the downtown needs more trees — there's not much for people who work there but also for those who live there and it's hot during the summer.' Article content Last November, the city announced it will receive nearly $61 million from the federal government's 2 Billion Trees (2BT) program — a 2019 election promise from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to plant an additional two billion trees across Canada within a decade. Article content Article content Article content The funding will allow for 930,000 new trees to be planted across Calgary over the next five years, which the city said will help expand its overall urban forest canopy and provide equitable access for all residents. Article content Article content Addy said the city's goal of 16 per cent trees coverage over land it owns should be nearly double that, a standard that's been met or sought by other Canadian centres and even more trees will be needed to replace those that die from drought or disease. Article content 'It's really something for Calgarians to come together on,' said Addy.
CBC
04-05-2025
- Climate
- CBC
Calgary continues efforts to plant nearly a million trees, and better balance local canopy
The city intends to plant 930,000 new trees by 2029 After a major influx of federal dollars last fall, Calgary's efforts to plant more trees continues this spring. Since 2023, Calgary has planted 200,000 trees as part of an effort to introduce 930,000 in total by 2029. Looking further ahead, Calgary, a city of roughly seven million trees, aims to nearly double its urban canopy coverage from 8.25 per cent, as measured in 2022, to 16 per cent by 2060. The local effort was bolstered by nearly $61 million from the federal government last fall. The funding is part of Canada's 2 Billion Trees program, a national effort to improve urban spaces, provide cleaner air and help the country adapt to climate change. But where Calgary's new trees will go is a pressing question surrounding this project. Many of the more well-established and central Calgary neighbourhoods have more trees. But Calgary's canopy often grows more sparse in neighbourhoods further from the city's core, in areas that weren't developed with trees in mind or have poorer soil quality. The disparity creates a problem for residents who miss out on benefits like trees that offer shade to mitigate heat in the summer and disrupt winds to protect from the cold in the winter, while also more effectively managing storm water, improving biodiversity, and enhancing social and mental wellbeing. Paul Atkinson, the city's acting urban forestry lead, said Calgary tries to tackle this disparity by targeting areas with less trees per hectare of public land, but it's not always a simple fix. Some areas need soil rehabilitation, which can be expensive, while other neighbourhoods weren't developed with enough space for trees, based on street design and where utilities were installed. "If you take that bird's eye view and look at some of these sites, they might look like ideal spots to plant a tree, but they might actually have high-pressure gas lines or utilities or street light cables or all these things underground," Atkinson said in an interview with This Is Calgary. LISTEN | Where will Calgary plant nearly a million trees? Media Audio | This is Calgary : You get a tree! And you get a tree! Caption: Where will Calgary plant nearly a million trees? We put that question to the city's top tree guy, and also ask if communities with historically fewer trees will get finally get spruced up. Open Full Embed in New Tab Loading external pages may require significantly more data usage than loading CBC Lite story pages. A map of the city's urban canopy shows neighbourhoods like Eau Claire, Erlton and Garrison Green have more than 25 city-maintained trees per hectare. But other neighbourhoods like Franklin, Sunridge and Mayland have less than five. The city's efforts don't just end on public land though, as its Branching Out program offers roughly 5,000 trees per year for residents to grow on their land, with quadrants covered by less canopy given priority. Frustrations over a more sparse canopy But some parts of the city want a stronger effort to balance the scales between trees in each neighbourhood. Much of Ward 5, which is represented by Coun. Raj Dhaliwal, has an urban canopy far below the city's average. In November, Dhaliwal said he planned to call for a sizeable amount of the federal funding toward new trees to be used in his ward. What's the value of a tree? The city will tell you Saddle Ridge is one neighbourhood with less coverage, boasting just eight city-maintained trees per hectare. Asim Baig, president of the Saddle Ridge Community Association, points out parts of his neighbourhood feel barren, with no trees at all or older plants damaged by hailstorms. He said he often hears frustration from other residents, because it seems as though trees damaged by hail aren't replaced at a rate matching the damage. "Every time we push for having more trees around our boulevards and parks, the reason that we hear is that soil is not as good as the other communities. And our frustration is that there has to be some sort of remedy to mitigate this problem," Baig said. Baig added that caring for trees has also had an effect to unite residents who share a passion for it, and that the neighbourhood on the whole wants to see more trees. "[Trees] add a sense of belonging," Baig said. "It's not even [just] better for environment, but people come together." Planning planting ahead Atkinson said soil quality, depth and availability can all be improved, and the benefits of better soil health, carbon sequestration below ground and tree longevity outweigh the associated cost. But it's still an expensive process, and can lead to some resistance. "When you're dealing with trees and convincing people if we enhance the soil it'll save us money over 200 years and it will produce a canopy over 200 years, it's a pretty tough sell because I won't be here in 200 years to find out if we're all correct," Atkinson said. The city plans its canopy development roughly a year out, and it's using other methods to put more trees in the ground like new micro-forest areas. It's planting potted trees that, because they need to be carefully dug into the ground by hand, can be installed closer to some underground utilities. In some neighbourhoods, Atkinson says they've already put in the work in all of the available plantable area, the canopy just needs time to grow. In other cases, there's more work to be done. "We want people to have access to trees. We want every citizen to have these cost-effective solutions to mitigate heat and all these things around residences," Atkinson said.
The Guardian
19-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
‘It will be beautiful to see our kids grow up with this': how communities around the world are planting trees
'I wanted to do something that would benefit as many people from the community as possible,' says Chloe Straw, pointing at a small but promising sapling visible through the window of her local cafe. In 2023, Chloe began chatting to her neighbours in Haringey, north London, about trees. 'I thought it'd be really nice to raise some money for trees on the main road. Everyone uses West Green Road, regardless of whether you have a lot of money or not, regardless of your background.' After getting in touch with Trees for Streets, a sponsorship scheme that guides communities across England on how to plant trees in their local areas with support from local councils, a small group was formed to work out how to do it. As a first step, Straw and friends were provided with an interactive map to choose the location of the trees, and that was passed along to Haringey council. Then they got help to set up a crowdfunding campaign, which was shared in local WhatsApp groups and community forums, secured 168 backers and raised more than £6,000 in one month. Mohamed al-Jawhari, a co-chair of Haringey Living Streets, said: 'It [WhatsApp] is a very powerful tool for getting a very simple message out very quickly to a lot of people. I got in contact with, like, a thousand people in a few minutes, because I forwarded on the message with a bit of an explanation to a local group here, a local group there, people who were interested in the environment and maybe wanted to help West Green.' The remaining costs were covered by Haringey council. The result? Twenty beautiful trees planted across the neighbourhood. The plan is as local as it gets, but it is also global. Around the world, city residents are working out how to fill their streets with trees as evidence grows of their benefits. As temperatures rise, research has shown that urban trees can play a fundamental role in keeping cities cool, evaporating water to provide a natural form of air-conditioning, cooling air temperatures and reducing the urban heat island effect. Work by Friends of the Earth in five English cities in 2023 showed that areas with more trees and greenery were up to 5C cooler. Cities and countriies are applying all kinds of models. Some councils and governments plant the trees using public money. In 2021, for example, the Canadian government launched the 2 Billion Trees programme, providing financial support to provinces, organisations and Indigenous governments to plant trees over a period of 10 years. But public funds are stretched everywhere, and the community model followed by Trees for Streets empowers local people to take their own action without waiting for a government plan. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) is a non-profit organisation in Philadelphia that trains individuals to lead community groups to plant trees across the US city. So far their programme, Tree Tenders, has trained more than 6,500 people, who have led volunteers in planting more than 3,000 trees each year. Andrew Conboy, an urban forester in Philadelphia whose work involves managing, maintaining and replanting street and park trees in the city, said: 'Most of the tree planting in Philadelphia is done through PHS. They do really great work all around the city and also in the suburbs surrounding the city. So many groups surrounding the cities are Tree Tenders groups.' He added: 'There's a heavy emphasis on native species here in the Philadelphia area, which is good thing because the native species are ultimately better for our wildlife and for our ecosystems, because those are the species that evolved here, and our wildlife need those species.' The Garden City Fund, a charity in Singapore, runs a similar initiative, the Plant-a-Tree programme. Individuals and organisations can donate to the cost of a young tree and then plant it in one of their managed green spaces. Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion Tree People, an environmental advocacy organisation, runs a forestry programme that supports communities to plant and care for trees in cities in southern California. The organisation also runs the School Greening programme, which provides training to parents, students, teachers and district leaders to plant and maintain trees in schools. Since the organisation was founded in 1973, it has worked with 3 million volunteers to plant more than 3m trees, included 30,000 trees on school campuses. As the West Green residents take turns discussing their local initiative over cups of coffee, it's clear that one of the most significant impacts the project has had is in strengthening connections within the community. Nick Owen, the owner of the local cafe Perkyn's on West Green Road, who contributed to the crowdfunder, said: 'It's lovely having the trees here now but it also feels a bit like a legacy. In five or 10 years when these trees are getting bigger and fuller, it'll be beautiful to see our kids growing up with that as well and knowing that we contributed to it.' Dan Snell, an urban forest officer at Haringey council who surveyed the location for the trees in West Green and works with communities on tree-planting initiatives across the borough, said: 'We have people who are enthusiastic about the long-term health of the trees and we want it to be something they can take ownership of, I suppose, like an extension of their home, something that's in the public realm but is also looked after by the community. 'There was another tree scheme on my mum's street who lives in Haringey … suddenly there were all these new street trees and my mum had met a load of neighbours that she hadn't really met before, even though she's been there for 30 years. It's had this really lovely long-term effect on bringing the street together. It's such a wonderful thing to connect over.'
Yahoo
19-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘It will be beautiful to see our kids grow up with this': how communities around the world are planting trees
'I wanted to do something that would benefit as many people from the community as possible,' says Chloe Straw, pointing at a small but promising sapling visible through the window of her local cafe. In 2023, Chloe began chatting to her neighbours in Haringey, north London, about trees. 'I thought it'd be really nice to raise some money for trees on the main road. Everyone uses West Green Road, regardless of whether you have a lot of money or not, regardless of your background.' After getting in touch with Trees for Streets, a sponsorship scheme that guides communities across England on how to plant trees in their local areas with support from local councils, a small group was formed to work out how to do it. As a first step, Straw and friends were provided with an interactive map to choose the location of the trees, and that was passed along to Haringey council. Then they got help to set up a crowdfunding campaign, which was shared in local WhatsApp groups and community forums, secured 168 backers and raised more than £6,000 in one month. Mohamed al-Jawhari, a co-chair of Haringey Living Streets, said: 'It [WhatsApp] is a very powerful tool for getting a very simple message out very quickly to a lot of people. I got in contact with, like, a thousand people in a few minutes, because I forwarded on the message with a bit of an explanation to a local group here, a local group there, people who were interested in the environment and maybe wanted to help West Green.' The remaining costs were covered by Haringey council. The result? Twenty beautiful trees planted across the neighbourhood. The plan is as local as it gets, but it is also global. Around the world, city residents are working out how to fill their streets with trees as evidence grows of their benefits. As temperatures rise, research has shown that urban trees can play a fundamental role in keeping cities cool, evaporating water to provide a natural form of air-conditioning, cooling air temperatures and reducing the urban heat island effect. Work by Friends of the Earth in five English cities in 2023 showed that areas with more trees and greenery were up to 5C cooler. Cities and countriies are applying all kinds of models. Some councils and governments plant the trees using public money. In 2021, for example, the Canadian government launched the 2 Billion Trees programme, providing financial support to provinces, organisations and Indigenous governments to plant trees over a period of 10 years. But public funds are stretched everywhere, and the community model followed by Trees for Streets empowers local people to take their own action without waiting for a government plan. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) is a non-profit organisation in Philadelphia that trains individuals to lead community groups to plant trees across the US city. So far their programme, Tree Tenders, has trained more than 6,500 people, who have led volunteers in planting more than 3,000 trees each year. Andrew Conboy, an urban forester in Philadelphia whose work involves managing, maintaining and replanting street and park trees in the city, said: 'Most of the tree planting in Philadelphia is done through PHS. They do really great work all around the city and also in the suburbs surrounding the city. So many groups surrounding the cities are Tree Tenders groups.' He added: 'There's a heavy emphasis on native species here in the Philadelphia area, which is good thing because the native species are ultimately better for our wildlife and for our ecosystems, because those are the species that evolved here, and our wildlife need those species.' The Garden City Fund, a charity in Singapore, runs a similar initiative, the Plant-a-Tree programme. Individuals and organisations can donate to the cost of a young tree and then plant it in one of their managed green spaces. Tree People, an environmental advocacy organisation, runs a forestry programme that supports communities to plant and care for trees in cities in southern California. The organisation also runs the School Greening programme, which provides training to parents, students, teachers and district leaders to plant and maintain trees in schools. Since the organisation was founded in 1973, it has worked with 3 million volunteers to plant more than 3m trees, included 30,000 trees on school campuses. As the West Green residents take turns discussing their local initiative over cups of coffee, it's clear that one of the most significant impacts the project has had is in strengthening connections within the community. Nick Owen, the owner of the local cafe Perkyn's on West Green Road, who contributed to the crowdfunder, said: 'It's lovely having the trees here now but it also feels a bit like a legacy. In five or 10 years when these trees are getting bigger and fuller, it'll be beautiful to see our kids growing up with that as well and knowing that we contributed to it.' Dan Snell, an urban forest officer at Haringey council who surveyed the location for the trees in West Green and works with communities on tree-planting initiatives across the borough, said: 'We have people who are enthusiastic about the long-term health of the trees and we want it to be something they can take ownership of, I suppose, like an extension of their home, something that's in the public realm but is also looked after by the community. 'There was another tree scheme on my mum's street who lives in Haringey … suddenly there were all these new street trees and my mum had met a load of neighbours that she hadn't really met before, even though she's been there for 30 years. It's had this really lovely long-term effect on bringing the street together. It's such a wonderful thing to connect over.'
CBC
08-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
12 million more trees to be planted on Tłı̨chǫ lands following $53M investment
Money to be used on building tree nursery and training for long-term restoration work Image | Spruce cones Caption: Cones from white spruce trees were collected on Tłı̨chǫ land last fall as part of a tree planting agreement that had already been struck. The federal and Tłı̨chǫ government are expanding that project now to plant 13 million trees in total, in the N.W.T. (Liny Lamberink/CBC) A total of 13 million trees are now expected to be planted on Tłı̨chǫ lands in the N.W.T. in the coming years following a joint investment of $53 million from the federal and Tłı̨chǫ governments. The Tłı̨chǫ government signed an agreement with Tree Canada and Let's Plant Trees in 2023 to plant one million trees over the course of three years around Behchokǫ̀, with half the money flowing from the federal government and the other half being raised through sponsorships. Work has already been underway since last year to harvest seeds from local tree species and to grow them in nurseries in the South. On Friday, the Tłı̨chǫ and federal governments announced a new deal to plant another 12 million on Tłı̨chǫ lands over the next seven years from locally-harvested seeds. This time, Canada's 2 Billion Trees program is putting nearly $45 million into the project while the Tłı̨chǫ government is pitching in more than $8 million. The money will also be used to build greenhouses for a tree nursery, incorporate cultural values into the project, and to provide training for long-term restoration activities, reads a news release from Natural Resources Canada. The goal of the project is to restore ecosystems, create jobs and bring back boreal caribou habitat. The release said it's also expected to have other long-term benefits like reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing resilience to climate exchange and providing protection from future wildfires. "The Tłı̨chǫ government is pleased to take a leadership role to foster the healing of the land after devastating wildfires," said Tłı̨chǫ Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty in the release. "Together, we will work to counter climate change through the reforestation of vital wildlife habitat and support training and employment opportunities for those in our communities." Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada's minister of energy and natural resources, said in a statement that the funding will play an important role bringing benefits to the Tłı̨chǫ territory, and help the federal government's goal of planting two billion trees over the next decade. "Through this project, we are showing how collaborative work with First Nations can ensure that the right tree is planted at the right place at the right time for the benefit of all Canadians," he said.
