No Net Loss of Ottawa Forests and Wetlands--Reality Check, Please.

There is a lot of fast, tech-sounding, enviro-talk these days – net zero, revenue neutral, no net loss. Are these constructs for real or just baffle-gab for the naively hopeful and reassurance for those living in virtual reality on their phones?

And there is the big talk from government officials, from the feds about the two billion tree initiative, or from former Mayor Watson who told us that the City of Ottawa would plant half a million trees between 2018 and 2022 (so about 100,000 per year). Mayor Sutcliffe now says he plans to get a full million trees over his term so that is about 250,000 per year.

But then, on the other side of the ledger, trees are going down: Tewin clear cut 25,000 trees and counting in just a couple of weeks of March 2023, and the derecho storm of May 2022 took out swaths of mature trees and has been described as the most significant weather-related forest disturbance in decades. With land speculation and urban sprawl continuing to be the dominant trend in Ottawa, we are also faced with the wicked irony that urban sprawl land-use patterns are a major driver of Ottawa’s greenhouse gas emissions going up.

There are other concerning issues. Urban intensification threatens to squeeze out every last stately tree on each lot. Under Doug Ford’s Bill 23, parkland requirements for new developments are cut in half, conservation authorities are made toothless,  and changes to wetland evaluation will soon unravel protections for many connected wetlands. 

How is all that adding up?

Or, more to the point, are we growing our tree canopy or losing it?

The high-level policy is to grow it. Ottawa’s new Official Plan sets a tree canopy target of 40% and states that, for rural areas, the City:

“shall take a no net loss approach with respect to evaluated wetlands deemed not provincially significant and forest cover outside the urban area and designated villages.” (4.8.1 (5))

And for urban areas, the City will:

“protect, and enhance tree canopy and protect wetlands and other natural areas and use nature-based solutions” (2.2.3 (7))

The Plan further states that nature builds resilience to the impacts of climate change through flood protection, heat mitigation, stormwater management, biodiversity and improved mental, social and physical health.

City Forestry Planning says that the Tree Protection By-law has been strengthened  and that  the city has several mechanisms for achieving no net loss, which include land-use planning, development processes, acquisition and conservation of land, and support for voluntary, private land conservation and stewardship.

But is there any evidence of success?

All around we are seeing tree losses without a clear outlook on how they are being replaced. When CAFES has asked for data on those losses we have been told that Forestry staff do not have capacity to either find this information or to report it to the public. But this raises an important question of whether the City is tracking the losses to ensure that our canopy and forest cover is being managed to “no net loss” (or even better for net growth to reach our canopy targets).  

Other data tracking sources show that Ottawa is losing trees. How can the public be assured that our urban canopy and rural forest is being managed and protected to “no net loss” if the City is not even tracking the losses? If the goal is to achieve no net loss of the rural forests and growth of the urban tree canopy, do we not need to know the negatives on the ledger and maintain that ledger to ensure that we are on track? If you don’t measure, how can you manage?  

You might have the bright suggestion that you can look at the recently passed city budget for a large increase in the 2023 Forestry budget for tree replacement for 2022 derecho damage, or for afforestation. Unfortunately a review of Budget 2023 shows that the Forestry Services budget grew in the same 2-4% range as operating infrastructure budgets and that there were no new staff added to increase the capacity of Forestry Services. On the capital side of the Forestry Budget we see that only one piece of land was acquired for $725,000.

A major tree canopy assessment for the entire National Capital region was last done in 2017, with results finally published in 2019. It showed that 31% of Ottawa was covered in trees and 76% of National Capital Commission (NCC) lands. With the next study now underway, we should consider whether getting assessment data every 5 years–or just once per term of council–is enough for us to hold our City Council to account for action.

We also know that NCC is monetizing land and is selling off lands not classed as National Interest Land Mass (NILM) while also developing NILM land on a lease basis -- such as the greenspace beside Mechanicsville for the embassy row development.

And on our own residential streets, we know that the trees with the red X do not automatically get replaced. If nobody asks for a new tree using the Trees in Trust program, there is no automatic replacement. As a community member of Ottawa, my experience is that when the City plants to replace a downed silver maple, the replacement is often a Japanese lilac or serviceberry instead of a large canopy tree.

Conclusion

Based on the above, CAFES is left to conclude that ‘no net loss’ is just an aspiration for now, while the reality is that we are losing forested areas and street canopy day by day in Ottawa.

We need to ask for the data on losses, by neighbourhood, by ward, and for our city as a whole.

We need to challenge the NCC and the City to invest and actually steward our natural heritage.

We lost all the tall white pines when settlers first came to this valley. Let’s do better this time around.

Angela Keller-Herzog is the Executive Director of CAFES Ottawa.