A tree branch falls with deadly consequences. That should prompt the city to review how it tends trees

Investing in the proper maintenance of Toronto’s trees is critical not just for our environment but the safety of all those who enjoy city parks.

thestar.com
Aug. 18, 2023

When the branch of a Siberian elm tree in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park broke and fell last month, striking 71-year-old art gallery owner Pari Nadimi, many Torontonians filed this awful tragedy under the category of “freak accident,” what an insurance company might label an “act of God.”

After all, terrible events occur every day out of the blue: Nadimi’s death, similar to a 2016 tragedy when another fallen tree branch killed a man in the same park, appeared to be one of these events.

But what if these deaths were not inevitable? Not fluke events but the result of chronic mismanagement?

In other words, what if the city does a subpar job when it comes to maintaining the city’s vast tree canopy. These are questions that arborists and tree experts are asking in the aftermath of Nadimi’s death---and have been asking for years.

Could Nadimi’s have been prevented if the city had better assessed the trees in Trinity Bellwoods Park?

Recent reporting by the Star’s Ben Spurr paints an unsettling picture of the tree maintenance program. Months prior to Nadimi’s death, a Toronto resident said he twice alerted city workers in the park to the potential danger posed by the very branch that would later fall and take her life.

After the incident, crews removed the tree. City staff later identified a further 16 trees for removal in the park and 21 trees received maintenance including pruning.

“Staff actively perform visual inspections of trees in these areas throughout the year and respond to thousands of calls and requests for tree-related service annually,” a city spokesperson told the Star Thursday.

The city says it gets 40,000 calls related to tree maintenance each year, performs more than 25,000 inspections and prunes more than 20,000 trees.

Yet multiple arborists who spoke with Spurr highlighted various problems with the city’s forestry practices from outdated assessment methods to severe over-pruning of mature trees.

“There are instances where I turn and I find trees that are pruned in such a way that has me concerned for their health and for their structure because they’re not being pruned to . . . recognized arboricultural standards,” arborist and urban forestry educator Todd Irvine told the Star.

The problem with over-pruning, or “lions tailing”---that is the thinning of interior branches, leaving the bulk of a tree’s foliage at the ends of its branches---is that it can weaken trees and make them more vulnerable to dropping limbs in the event of a storm.

Other arborists weren’t convinced that was the problem here. It is entirely fair to conclude, in light of recent events, that the city must review how it maintains trees. (It’s estimated there are 4.1 million trees on public land and another 6.1 million on private lands.)

The city’s strategic forest management plan, adopted a decade ago, highlighted the importance of “proactive systematic maintenance” of trees, saying that such an approach mitigates risk and improves their long-term health.

“Reactive maintenance reduces the opportunity to perform corrective pruning or other preventative maintenance thus resulting in more frequent storm breaks and shortened tree life spans,” it stated.

Certainly, this latest tragedy underscores the importance of tending to trees, especially as we confront a future of storms made worse by climate change. In 2022, the city saw a significant spike in storm-related calls --- 12,701 compared to just under 8,000 in 2020 and 2021.

Investing in the proper maintenance of Toronto’s trees is critical not just for the environment but the safety of all those who enjoy city parks and bask in the pleasure of sitting in the leafy shade of a mighty tree.