Saanich’s new vision and plan to manage a healthy, resilient urban forest

Letter to the Editor

For many of us, climbing a tree was one of the great pleasures of childhood — a natural jungle gym filled with knotted twists and turns; a place to escape with a good book, or perhaps evade a sibling; a new adventure with every step.

With age comes wisdom, and the realization that trees provide much more than a fun place to scramble up and hide. They provide oxygen and clean the air we breathe. They cool our streets and provide much-needed shade. They provide food as well as habitat for wildlife. They make our community more desirable and livable, and they help combat climate change.

We’re lucky to live in a place like Saanich which enjoys a healthy urban forest. We’re equally lucky that local residents see and understand the tremendous value in it. Saanich Council values it as well, and that’s why we’re moving forward with an updated Urban Forest Strategy that reflects Saanich’s needs and the community’s future vision.

Having a strategy to guide us through such a transformative time for our community is vital. Just as we all recognize the importance of protecting trees and enhancing our urban forest, we also know that Saanich is experiencing a lot of growth right now. Creating more homes and ensuring we have the infrastructure to keep pace with that growth certainly adds pressure, yet makes us mindful of the need to balance these competing priorities.

So how do we do that? How do we build and grow responsibly while maintaining and enhancing our trees and forests for current and future generations? How do we ensure that everyone in our community benefits from the urban forest?

There are 41 actions outlined in the updated Strategy that will help us manage Saanich’s urban forest over the next 50 years. Pursuing all 41 concurrently would be difficult — so to start, we are prioritizing nearly a dozen actions that are expected to have the greatest impact. Overall, our goal is to increase our tree canopy cover to 44 per cent District-wide by 2064.

Our priority actions cover everything from developing and implementing a tree planting plan for our public lands — including boulevard trees — and connecting and enhancing Saanich’s natural forests. They include revising our planning and design processes to consider trees earlier in the process, and exploring tree planting and voluntary stewardship programs on private lands and incentives for property owners to retain high-value trees. We’re also identifying areas that have less tree canopy cover and examining the potential acquisition of park spaces that can be reforested.

There are more actions in our plan that you can check out in more detail at Saanich.ca/UrbanForestStrategy.

Throughout this process, we’ve gathered input and feedback from residents, community groups, stakeholders, and Indigenous leaders and community members along with District staff spanning many departments. This collaboration has produced a thoughtful strategy that acknowledges the challenges and opportunities before us, and provides a new vision and action plan for how we will respond and manage a healthy, resilient urban forest into the future.

As Saanich continues to grow, we want to ensure trees continue to contribute to the health, well-being and livability of our communities — and that kids can keep joyfully climbing those trees for many years to come.

Dean Murdock, Mayor of Saanich