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By 2041, Downtown St. Catharines will look at lot different than it does today with an estimated 30% increase in population density. This level of development will have significant implications for the Urban Forest (UF) in the BIA. Currently, tree planning and maintenance is generally divided between two departments: Community, Recreation & Culture Services and Municipal Works.
These two departments are responsible for the entire UF in the City of St. Catharines which is an incredible amount of responsibility. An expanded Urban Forestry team would amplify and assist the work being done already, allowing for greater capacity, interdepartmental collaboration, and external participation from the public.
An expanded Urban Forestry team can provide many services for the City, to ensure these urban forests are properly valued and maintained into the future.
Imagine grabbing your bike and riding along the Twelve Mile Creek to your favourite restaurant downtown!
Once trees are established as natural assets and partnerships are created, these urban trees can be protected through the implementation of municipal by-laws. These efforts will provide urban trees with the proper resources to grow into mature infrastructure under the guidance of an urban forest technician.
From there, we can improve connectivity between the St. Catharines Downtown BIA and Twelve Mile Creek. Improving connectivity with Twelve Mile creek will help the SCDA to activate and monitor this area for its potential as an environmental & tourist asset. With this action, the SCDA can also advocate for improved multi-modal transportation routes and monitor their value for the downtown BIA.
In a forest, some trees provide shade for other species to thrive beneath the canopy – while others share nutrients in the soil so that diversity can thrive! Similar to these forest trees, the best way to create strength and resilience for a sustainable urban forest is through the establishment of formal partnerships.
To bring more harmony between the City wide greening efforts, a formal partnership could exist between the City of St. Catharines’ Green Committee and the SCDA’s own StreetScape & Sustainability Committee. This would establish a cooperative force to ensure that urban street trees are effectively managed and prioritized as important infrastructure for the Downtown core.
These partnerships can be extended to other groups that will improve our collective efforts to provide a sustainable urban forest for many years to come such as:
We all love trees for their natural radiance: they provide us with shade, greenery, and a sense of community. For many of us, trees are the reference for where we call home. Like many other animals, we use trees to keep us cool, to get around and to keep us safe. Since trees are so important, it can be difficult to truly capture the infrastructural importance of trees for our communities and the environment.
This is where our first step comes into play. By reclassifying USTs, we will help establish these trees as valuable, sustainable, and significant assets for the City. The City of St. Catharines Asset Management department works to provide longevity for their assets, guide decisions, provide guidance for maintenance and rehabilitation, analyze costs/benefits, and strategically integrate this infrastructure with community objectives.
“Natural asset management is a meaningful way for municipalities to respond to the impacts of climate change.”
Cassandra Pacey, Asset Manager, City of Waterloo (August 2022)
By reclassifying trees as assets, particularly with an emphasis on Climate Change adaptation, the City of St. Catharines will ensure that the services trees provide us are justly appraised and appreciated, so that proper management of these assets can create a sustainable investment into the future.
When a tree falls in the city, does it make a sound? Under the direction of the Urban Forest Manager & with the proper by-laws in place, every urban forest tree will be provided with various protections to prevent unmonitored losses:
Many municipalities have varying urban forest management by-laws that help protect their urban canopy. By exploring these protections, the City of St. Catharines can help protect our urban forest investments and reduce costly retroactive efforts to replace lost value.
While the law can help protect the existing tree population, the City of St. Catharines can invest in effective planning to ensure that new trees are provided with the proper ingredients to thrive and grow into maturity.
Each tree will require its own unique considerations and should be appraised by a professional. The primary considerations include:
LOCATION: Determining available sites within the Downtown core for new trees.
SPECIES SELECTION: Selecting hardy species that can survive within the conditions of an urban environment, while ensuring that the diversity of the urban forest remains high (this creates resilience against disease and climate change).
SITE PREPARATIONS: Preparing the site is arguably the most important step to ensuring longevity in a tree population; if a tree doesn’t have the opportunity to establish stability within its environment, it will not likely reach its full potential for size and age. There are multiple factors to consider:
Is the soil too compacted for a sapling to establish itself? Perhaps a soil cell system and potential mycorrhizal amendments will do the trick! Is the site not suitable for in-ground tree planting? Perhaps a large, mobile tree planter would be more suitable.
There are a lot of creative ways to integrate green technology to ensure a flourishing urban canopy!