Winnipeg councillors call for tree plan to protect city's urban forest
The plan would include ways to tackle Dutch Elm Disease, ash borer beetles and maintain Winnipeg's tree canopy.

MetroNews.ca
Sept. 18, 2017
Braeden Jones

After the city’s forestry branch struggled to keep up with the tree pruning required to combat Dutch Elm Disease this summer, city councillors want to make a plan.

The plan isn't solely to stay ahead of the disease —though the city forester admits that task alone has stretched resources thin—but also to brace for the looming threat of ash borer beetles, improve the rate of replacement tree planting, and just maintain the city’s tree canopy.

“In general, there’s many issues happening to our canopy at this point, and we need a long-term strategy,” Coun. John Orlikow said after Monday’s protection, community services and parks committee meeting, during which he and Coun. Russ Wyatt moved to establish a “comprehensive forest management strategy.”

“We have parts of a strategy, but we’re having trouble achieving even that because new pressures keep popping up,” he explained. “So what are we going to do? How do we prepare? Winnipeg has a lovely tree canopy, so what can we do to protect it?”

Orlikow thinks long-term planning could help local contractors strategize and build capacity to help the department catch up. At the moment, tree replacement is well below one-to-one, which he thinks should be the bare minimum, and Dutch Elm Disease-related pruning is backed up to 2015.

“But they (the industry) can’t ramp up… like road work, we can only increase it so much, as far as the industry allows,” he said.

His motion will see the forest management strategy discussed as part of the 2018 budget deliberations.