City Trees is a premier publication focused on urban + community forestry. In each issue, you’ll learn how to best manage the trees in your community and more!
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/36513
cies diversity is considered good; however, more than 10% of our trees represent the Acer and Thuja genera (maple and cedar). Sugar maple, Norway maple, white ash, and eastern white cedar each comprise more than 5% of the tree population. Urban Forestry supports and promotes maximizing bio- diversity and natural heritage value by controlling inva- sive and non-native species in favour of native species. We implement this through our forest management and planting activities. Efforts have been underway for several years to encourage the planting of large- growing native trees wherever possible and we also promote this through our free residential street tree planting program which offers a good variety of trees to choose from. We are always on the lookout for new varieties of trees that are resilient and have desirable traits and attributes for planting in our parks and along our streets. We are also mindful of climate change and are considering adaptation strategies as part of our species selection process. What about the natural areas within the City? It is a pleasure to teach people about the urban forest and some of its unique component features. Active stewardship of our natural areas complements our protection policies. We have a ravine system and associated forested table lands that offer excellent opportunities to engage people in learning more about natural processes and to enjoy nature right in the heart of the City. An excellent example of this is in High Park. Our man- agement of the oak savannah and the exotic plants in High Park has been very successful. High Park is 160 ha (395 acres) in size and is located on the ancient glacial Lake Iroquois Sand Plain. The park is home to nationally rare black oak (Quercus velutina) savan- nah or woodland which contains a high diversity of provincially and locally rare wildflowers and grasses. Oak savannahs are open, oak-dominated woodlands containing scattered low shrubs and a rich variety of herbaceous plants and grasses, many of which have southern or prairie affinities. Savannahs are fire- adapted communities that depend on periodic burn- ing (naturally occurring or prescribed fires) for renewal and maintenance. Over the past century, as the City’s population increased, the natural plant communities in High Park became fragmented by the introduction of structures and related infrastructure, as well as by environmentally degrading land uses which included recreational activi- ties. Despite the changes to its plant communities, the park remained one of the most significant natural areas in the Toronto region. Approximately 22.7 ha (56 acres) of fragmented black oak savannah are currently found within the park. www.urban-forestry.com Beginning in 1992, a number of policies and pro- grams supporting active restoration of High Park’s endangered ecosystems were developed. Since that time a combination of progressive management activities have been implemented and are ongoing, including prescribed burns, invasive plant control, the planting of native plants propagated from local seed (and grown within the park’s own green- houses), as well as reintroduction of native plants sourced from similar ecosystems in the Province of Ontario. Community volunteers have had a significant and ongoing role in the reintroduction of thousands of plants to the park (including rare and extirpated plants such as butterfly weed, spiked blazing star, and stiff gentian) as well as other restoration activities and monitoring. The results of restoration efforts to date have been very good. Provincially rare wild lupines as well as other wildflowers and native grasses have increased in numbers. Black oak seedlings are also regenerating and should replace the older trees as they decline. What are some technologies you are employing? Urban Forestry is now integrated with the City’s 311 customer service system. Members of the public are now able to make and track the status of requests for tree planting, maintenance, or other forestry related services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In prepa- ration for the integration, we implemented the use of Toughbook computers in the field which allows our arborist inspectors to update our asset management system with tree information and create work orders to identify required tree work in real time. Use of technology in the field has improved data quality and ease of collection. Staff that are most involved with new plantings, and particularly naturalized plantings, have been enhancing their ability to plan and monitor planting by utilizing geospatial technologies. The use of GPS units allows us to locate specific planting or management areas which can then be projected into our mapping system for the purpose of monitoring progress. The City is responding to parkland hazards through a systematic, proactive inspection process of our highest use areas of risk. We are currently testing this inspec- tion process guided by heat mapping, where parkland areas under canopy with the greatest use are deemed the highest priority for inspection. Inspectors use these heat maps with GPS systems to track required tree work as they perform inspections. The result is mapping with aerial imagery that allows work crews to easily find trees within large parkland parcels that were previously hard to describe. 15