Mayoral candidate touts plan to plant more trees in Toronto

Toronto mayoral candidate Gil Penalosa asks voters to look at the city's trees and expect more to grow in the future.

The City of Penalosa decided to adopt his 3-30-300 plan, an idea first proposed by Cecil Koninendyk, a professor of forest resources at the University of British Columbia. is proposed to the city.

"Everyone in the city needs a quality green space or park within 300 meters, with a window that he can see three trees, covering 30% of his neighborhood canopy. It is.” Penalosa.

Increasing both trees and green space not only improves the health of the urban canopy, but also improves mental health while mitigating the impacts of urban flooding and climate, he said. Stated. Change. Penalosa said the priority is to plant more trees in low-income and racialized areas, as most of the city's urban forests are in wealthier neighborhoods.

"There is a big tree inequality in our city," he said.

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Sandy Smith, professor and director of the Forestry Program at the University of Toronto, said he has known the disparity in green space in Toronto for some time. said it was fairly typical of other comparable cities that lacked and were uneven in greenery. Because these areas are usually low-income areas and areas of community conflict," she said.

Penalosa's pitch to plant more trees in the ground isn't exactly an original idea. Both the Liberal Party and his NDP had plans to increase the state's tree capacity during the spring elections. Federal liberals have also promised to plant 2 billion trees by 2030, but by the end of last year had only scratched the surface.

Incumbent Mayor John Torrey pledged to plant more trees while running for the first local elections in 2014. Torrey said at the time that the current rate of planting 120,000 trees a year was not enough to maintain the tree canopy. Tory promised that over the next ten years he would plant 3.8 million trees, or 380,000 trees per year.

Breakdowns from the city's Parks, Forestry and Recreation sector, however, show that the Tory campaign falls well short of its goals. is showing.

Penalosa told Global News that what sets his promise apart from Tory's is that he is determined to make it. While he, who has been involved in the design, construction and improvement of urban parklands, said there was a political motive for planting trees in the ground, Mr. Tory did not. And the city has planted 120,000 trees a year, and he hasn't planted more because that number hasn't increased."

Tory's campaign declined a request for an interview with Global News, but said in a statement: city. Under Mayor Torrey's leadership, we are moving forward.

Smith said cities, by definition, keep nature at bay and stand by promises to plant more trees. She warned against being overly critical of achieving goals, so long as there is incremental change. The lack of space and the need to bring the public to the side of policy initiatives.

"There are so many trees that can be planted on roads, and as many trees as can be planted in public parks, up to the limit," said Smith. "More than half of the land that can be planted in cities is actually on private land."

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