City Within a Park
Urban Forestry in Toronto, Canada by Carol Walker Gayle, Supervisor of Forest Policy & Standards, Urban Forestry Branch of the Parks, Forestry, and Recreation Division, Toronto, Canada Photos Courtesy of the City of Toronto
Some people have referred to Toronto, Canada’s largest city, as the most diverse place on the planet. People from almost every continent make Toronto their home, and we speak more than 100 languages. The City is laid out under a diverse canopy of green that is the urban for- est. In addition to our cultural diversity, a diverse urban forest is one of our best features, and Torontonians hold it in high regard.
What are the latest happenings in our Toronto Urban Forestry program?
Urban Forest Study
We recently completed our urban forest study using i- Tree Eco. We initiated the study based on the need to understand the composition, structure, and distribution of the urban forest and to establish a baseline forest con- dition that will allow us to monitor progress in achieving our objectives over time. Having a detailed understand-
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ing of the state of the forest is of course a necessary first step in developing a plan for managing the resource.
We are now able to quantify the services provided by the urban forest, understand the distribution of forest cover across the city (a forest and land cover map was also produced), and have a portrait of the attributes of our trees on public and private lands. The study shows that Toronto supports a reasonably healthy and diverse forest cover.
City Trees