Community Forest Management Strategy

The first step is a staff report that will review the effectiveness of the Bylaw during its first year of implementation. Once this report has been received by Council, a technical review will be conducted followed by community consultation. This work is expected to take approximately four months (September to December 2020).

Tree Protection Bylaw 2019 No. 5478.

Development of the Strategy will be a two-phase process completed over a duration of approximately 12 months (July 2020 to July 2021). Some of the Phase 1 tasks have already been completed, such as the Background Review and partial completion of the Inventory, Mapping, and Analysis with the remaining tasks to be completed from July to September 2020. Phase 2 will focus on community goal setting and action planning, including vision statement, principles, goals, targets and actions. Phase 2 will be completed from October 2020 to July 2021.

The Community Forest Management Strategy will consider the Township as a whole, including both urban and rural areas.

Urban tree canopy cover includes green infrastructure within the Urban Containment Boundary such as community parks, neighbourhood parks, pocket parks, protected riparian areas, wildlife corridors, boulevards and street greenways.

Rural areas occupy approximately 75% of the Township’s land base and hold significant clusters of trees and forests. Rural forest clusters include Crown lands owned by the Federal and Provincial Governments; regional parks owned by Metro Vancouver; Municipal Nature Park, Ponder Park and Williams Park owned by the Township; riparian areas; private woodlots; and hedgerows. Many of these rural forest clusters provide critical ecological linkages between urban areas and are integral parts of the regional ecosystem in the Lower Mainland.

There are several reasons for the timing of the CFMS as a Council directive:

• This strategy will compliment and strengthen the wide range of policies related to trees that already exist into one document.
• It has been one year since the Tree Protection Bylaw was put in place, and a review of the Bylaw, which will be done as part of the CFMS is important.
• Climate change is affecting the Township and trees can play an important role in mitigating its affects. In hot weather, outdoor enthusiasts could easily find shade beneath a growing tree canopy that is capturing carbon and improving biodiversity.
• As a municipality, we are increasingly aware of the benefits of trees not only environmentally, but socially and economically as well. It is a priority to strengthen our community in these ways, and trees are a part of that.