Healthy Rural Woodlands in Canada's National Capital

There is a spiritual side to forests. While not everyone is moved to the threshold of actively hugging a tree, most people can appreciate the allure of a sylvan path. Canada's forest lands are part of the country's identity. We all seem to love a tree, at least most of the time.

But why should rural trees matter to people living in the city? This article aims to make that clear.

1. The History Of Rural Woodlands In Ottawa

It is well-established that Eastern Canada was essentially covered with vast, mature forests before European settlers moved in. The Indigenous People living here had cleared land for agriculture in previous times, but by the time townships were being laid out in the 19th century there was little record of those practices persisting. But settlers tried farming almost everywhere they could, and so a great deal of the land was cleared. Trees were also cut for timber and for making charcoal, and the bark from some trees was gathered for tanning leather.

Trees always held some value. It was common for farms to keep a woodlot for firewood or a larger “bush lot” for cutting trees and hunting but almost no very old trees were left standing. Moreover, there were forest fires, and in some cases those were very large like the Great Fire of 1870. Accordingly, although our region had a lot of forested land in the 20^th Century, most of the trees were relatively young, second-growth rather than old-growth.

During the 20^th Century most of the decisions about which rural lands would grow crops, pasture animals, or be left in forest were made by private landowners. An important exception was Ottawa's Greenbelt for which governments expropriated some greenspace and support a number of reforestation projects during its development in the 1950s and 1960s. Until January 1, 2001, most land use planning was vested in 7 urban and suburban municipalities and 4 rural townships that were then amalgamated to make the expanded city we now know as Ottawa. Until that day rural residents ran their local governments – after then governance became amalgamated.

2. Why These Woodlands Are Important To The Urban Population Of Ottawa

Some people might feel that urban residents of Ottawa should care about the forests in the rural parts of the new, bigger city simply because of civic responsibility. After all, it is the amalgamated city government that now has management authority for the rural areas, and the urban voters control City Council. While this is true, civic responsibility is often not enough to compel action. There are many other reasons that rural forests are important for the city.

Rural resources feed the city economy—that is the theory of the traditional Canadian economy, isn't it? We have extensive natural resources and cities form to service a society that needs food and construction materials from surrounding areas. Economically, we are all in the same boat. In fact, cities and rural areas need each other to survive. For a city like Ottawa, with a lot of government employment, the connection to the country at large can not be forgotten – and the connection starts with Ottawa's own rural areas.

Rural woodlots provide an opportunity for individual city folk to harvest benefits from nature. It takes all kinds to make a city, and some people like to go to the forest to gather from its production. This includes those who hunt, and fish, collect mushrooms and otherwise take from the woodlands in many sustainable ways.

Ottawa's rural forests provide a wide range of healthy recreational activities and sports for urban dwellers. Trails provide for hiking and mountain-biking in the summer, and skiing in the winter. 

Forests provide essential environmental services for the city. They purify the air and the water, they provide home and sustenance for all aspects of biodiversity and they sequester carbon. They moderate the local climate and work day-and-night like large anti-pollution machines. The entire cycle of life plays out in the forest, from pollination to decomposition. The forest is a great biochemical factory, processing carbon, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and many other essential elements. 

Rural woodlands have aesthetic and spiritual value.

Our forests are wonderful for learning – they are education centres for academic and citizen-based science. Most area school children cherish the field trips they have into the forest, where they can find out about their place in nature. People go out from the city to study birds, insects, wildflowers, and of course, trees.

If the rural woodlands decline, the City will lose all of these functions. We can not let that happen.

3. Where Are Ottawa's Rural Forests?

The forested areas of rural Ottawa are not precisely delineated. There is no sure way to say where one tract ends and another begins, and when small woodlots are included the labelling problem becomes extremely complex. Topography, land ownership and a bit of governance have created a mosaic. While some chunks of forest have official names and show up in places like official plans, the actual image of forests in the landscape is like a scattering of inkblots. A high-level viewpoint is needed if we are to appreciate the significance  of our forests. We have to take into account the size and age of forest patches and how they interconnect.

On this basis we have grouped most of Ottawa's forests into the following table, though many smaller woodlots are left out at this scale.

5. What Is Happening To The Woodlands Now?

There is an alarming loss of forested lands through the settled areas where all of us live. Between 2010 and 2023 approximately 5000 ha of trees were removed from the Ottawa landscape. In 2023 alone, 536 ha of trees were removed. Ottawa with all of its rural land is now down to 35% forest cover.

These statistics may just slide by many readers so let us try to put that into another context. How many trees were lost when those 5000 hA of forest were removed? To be honest, we have to do some hand-waving here because there are no forest inventory surveys for most of the covered area, and so there are no tree counts. We wouldn't even have a clear definition of what qualifies as a tree for the interested reader – would that tiny hickory that has been growing in the shade for 20 years without reaching 20 centimetres in height be a tree for you? Undaunted, let us use a reasonable estimate of trees per hA for a second-growth forest  such as we would find here and simply ignore millions of seedling-sided stems, only counting trees really big enough to hurt, if we walk into them. On this basis we could say, with a wave of the hand, that there are 500 trees per hA in those lost forests. So, we are talking about 2.5 million trees, as a net loss. 

6. What Can Be Done For Responsible Stewardship?

Ottawa is losing its forests, and it is falling behind on its stated goals for tree cover.

One thing that can be done is to get organized. This means getting people involved and that is what Rural Woodlands Ottawa is doing for the city's forests.  Find us on the web at ruralwoodlands.org .  Our most active social media presence is our Facebook page, just search for Rural Woodland Ottawa.

Similar-minded groups get more done when they work together.

Rural landowners will be better stewards of forests when governments structrure their tax programs to provide incentives for conservation.

The loss of forest in one area can be offset by improvements else where, and developers can be encouraged to do this during the planning process.

The solutions for rural Ottawa will be different from those in the urban centre. For one thing, we need to recognize that the rural landowner is the effective manager. They need to be able to decide whether and when a particular property will grow trees, butterfly meadows, or soybeans. Therefore we need to be much more open to incentives for landowners rather than relying on zoning restrictions.

Another difference in the rural situation is recognizing that reforestation is less effective than retention. It is better to leave a tree than to plant a tree. While Rural Woodlands Ottawa is supportive of tree-planting in certain areas, with the right native species, it puts more emphasis on the conservation of the older-age forests that we already have.

Rural Woodlands Ottawa is gathering steam as an open, grassroots organization working for the city's forests. It will be taking action. Everyone is encouraged to find out more about the group, and lend support. For the love of trees.

This article was contributed by Rural Woodlands Ottawa – find us on the web at ruralwoodlands.org

If you would like to follow up on any of the references used in this article, please see below:

Significant Woodlands - Guidelines for Identification, Evaluation, and Impact Assessment. City of Ottawa. 2022.

Discussion Paper, New Official Plan - Natural Ottawa. City Of Ottawa, Planning, Infrastructure, and Economic Development. March 2019.

North Gower, A Village History, 1820-2020. Susan McKellar et al., Rideau Township Historical Society. 2023.