Urban forest managers in Ontario are facing complicated and increasingly detrimental threats to critical municipal assets, our urban trees. The value and management of urban forests varies greatly across jurisdictions in Ontario, which is due in part to a lack of coordinated effort and support at the provincial level. As a result, many urban forest managers are only able to focus their efforts on reactionary urban forest management in the face of invasive species and climate change. Seeing the need for support for these managers, GIO is offering an urban forest policy brief, toolkit and workshop to help municipalities manage this vital green infrastructure.
In the coming month, GIO is hosting an urban forest asset management workshop in Guelph (October 5th) and Toronto (October 11th). The half-day workshop will include an introduction to municipal asset management, and case studies from municipalities in Ontario that are beginning to integrate urban forests into their asset management plans. The provincial government has recently incorporated green infrastructure in their draft asset management guidance, which means that municipal urban forest managers now have an excellent opportunity to include urban forests in asset management plans; Our October workshops will help provide practical information and best practice examples to those wishing to learn more about managing urban forests as assets.
The urban forest asset management workshops will be followed by the release of a toolkit for urban forest managers that will help with communicating the benefits of trees in a municipal context as well as the benefits of including urban forests in asset management plans.
Space is still available, so to Register for our October workshops, please click here
Next Steps
GIO is preparing a Policy Brief that will call on the provincial government to take action to support municipalities including providing funding, technical guidance and soil protection.