Throughout 2014 I was campaigning to become London's next Mayor! I was attempting to inspire people to realize that we have the ability to live in sustainable communities and create sustainable developments...
Several people told me that the best way to bring my ideas to reality would be to join a City Hall committee. They told me that the committees make the policies that the City Councillors can approve. If a policy is approved, it's then the City Departments' job to find the ways to implement these new policies.
Soon after the election, I applied to two committee groups. A few months later, I learned that our Mayor and all 14 City Councillors had voted unanimously to have me sit as a voting member on the Trees & Forests Advisory Committee!
For the last year, I have learned a lot and I have been very happy to see that many of my ideas and concerns are being listened to. It makes me feel great to be a small part of a larger effort to ensure that London's forests will be taken care of in new and better ways!!!!
To celebrate Earth Day 2016, I decided to write a short story about what is happening at these TFAC meetings, so that London residents will realize that a great many things are being planned for our future...
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| Devon and I have been planting trees on Earth Day since he was a baby! |
Climate Change and London’s Forests
“Society generally recognizes that the
global climate is changing. The strong
global investment in the recent Conference of the Parties 21 held in Paris
(December 2015) provides testament to public acknowledgement that our climate
is in flux, and without concerted action on the part of government, businesses
and citizens, our climate will come under severe stress. Temperatures are rising, precipitation
patterns have become unpredictable and extreme weather events are now both more
common and severe.”
I felt a mix of emotions while reading
this opening paragraph of a fifty page report at the February meeting of the
Trees & Forests Advisory Committee in City Hall. I feel concern for the challenges that will
be confronting our children and I also feel relief for the fact that reports of
this nature are finally dominating discussions in our political arenas as a new
way of thinking and acting are beginning to take root.
The Trees & Forests Advisory
Committee is a group of volunteers (mostly coming from local professional
forestry departments) dedicated towards ensuring that London’s urban forests
will continue to thrive over the next hundred years. As I continued reading this report it became
clear that this goal will indeed be one of London’s greatest challenges to
face!
One of the clearest examples of just how
extreme our local environments will change due to climate conditions became
apparent when I flipped to the next page of the report to see two maps of North
America. The first map showed the current
range of the common Tulip tree with its northern range located around the North
Bay area of Ontario, travelling east through lower regions of Quebec and into
the Maritimes. The southern range is
presently located along the Gulf of Mexico coastlines of Texas through to
Florida. The second map predicted (as a
best case scenario) that within 100 years the southern range of the Tulip tree
will be just south of Canada’s border while the northern range will shift into
northern Ontario and Quebec and into Labrador.
A look of disbelief was found on the faces of all TFAC members as this
discussion continued.
“Such shifts in climate conditions have
occurred regularly throughout history, with evidence of large range shifts
taking place during the last ice age.
However, the current rate of change is so great that many species will
likely not posses the capability to shift at a rate fast enough to ensure their
survival.”
Undaunted, discussions continued and
presentations with graphs and charts and species lists filled overhead
screens. TFAC members moved forward with
ideas and plans that will begin a new phase of action for our urban forests.
Already, it has been reported that City
planting projects over the last four years have increased by 400%. At the turn of the century the City was
planting around 1 200 trees a year. Now,
budgets have been shifted and this has increased our ability to plant close to
5 000 trees each year. These numbers do
not reflect the other many thousands of trees that are also being planted by
citizens and community groups – just to be clear. But is this enough? TFAC members all agree that these numbers
need to increase even more, while also ensuring that these young trees have the
ability to mature.
To do this, a new ‘watering’ policy has
recently been drafted and this will be facing City Councillors for approval in
the next month or so. Another policy has
recently been drafted that will allow builders to plant trees in new
developments several years earlier than the present policy dictates.
While many small yet needed policies are
now being drafted, TFAC members have continued to diligently oversee one
massive plan that recently went before City Council. This plan has simply been named ‘The Urban
Forest Strategy’.
Recently, this document came under
pressure through the City Budget process and it brings the warmest smile to my
face to have learned that over 17 000 local residents got involved to convince
City Councillors that the UFS needs support.
This is a good thing!
Presently, London’s forest canopy stands
at around 24% of urban land space. In
comparison to other neighbouring communities this amount is well below healthy
standards. The UFS, if implemented to
its fullest extent, will see our canopy coverage increase to 28% be the year
2035 and our goal is to continue increasing our canopy coverage to 32% by the
year 2065. This will not be an easy goal
to accomplish, but as more and more citizens become aware of our need for green
spaces and a healthy environment I am confident that we will accomplish these
goals.
This is just one example of how our view
of the future has changed. We are no
longer thinking in terms of just four years down the road… we are now looking
fifties years into our future and making plans that will ensure that our
children have a safe and healthy city to live in.
Jim Kogelheide
April, 2016
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