DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (Hansard), Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - Two Minute Statement
J. Horgan: I had the pleasure recently of meeting with Judith Cullington, Adam Taylor and Jeremy Gye of the Urban Forest Stewardship Initiative. Established by the Habitat Acquisition Trust, the UFSI is a partnership of individuals, organizations and government entities dedicated to conservation, restoration and sustainable use of greater Victoria's urban forests.
With an estimated population increase of approximately 33 percent over the next 20 years, our challenge will be to protect the living forests found in our community, old-growth remnants, backyard fruit trees, urban parks and trail systems, Garry oak meadows and treed boulevards. The UFSI is aiming to increase the public awareness of the benefits of urban forests and the importance of implementing land use planning to promote the sustainable development of our region.
As little information existed on the amount of urban forest within our region, a critical first step was to undertake a project to map the changes in tree cover and impervious surface area in greater Victoria. The goal was to start gathering quantitative data about the urban forests in our region, develop an estimate of the green infrastructure benefits provided by our urban forests and create a baseline that could be used to track future changes of the urban forest.
The results of the mapping project revealed that between 1986 and 2005, from North Saanich to Sooke we lost 8 percent of our overall tree cover. That's about 2,500 hectares, or six and a half times the area of Goldstream Provincial Park.
People in the capital region are increasingly aware of the role our urban forest plays in maintaining healthy and vibrant neighbourhoods.
I would like to congratulate and thank the USFI for doing a magnificent job in providing a baseline to assist communities in making smart planning decisions now to ensure that our urban forests are there in the future. To find out more, I encourage all those watching to visit http://www.hat.bc.ca/ and learn more about urban forest stewardship initiatives.
