Rural Woodlands Ottawa: Acting to Stop Tree Loss

Rural Woodlands Ottawa is a volunteer group dedicated to preserving healthy woodlands in a diverse landscape with woodlots, wetlands, hedgerows and natural open areas. You can find out more about the organization at their facebook page and website.

We had come together because we shared a concern for the loss of trees. For some of us it was the shock of seeing bulldozers pushing together heaps of roots where a forest had been the week before that pushed us to act. The landscape looks so torn and broken without the trees, the ruts from tracked vehicles and smoldering piles of mud and branches signifying a violent end to a part of nature we too often take for granted. In other cases it was not the felling of a single forest patch that alarmed us, as much as the repetition as year after year more woodlands were cleared.

Ask anyone to imagine a rural scene; more than likely, they would picture a landscape with a laneway lined with spreading maples, a pond behind the barn with a few cattails, and a family of tree swallows chasing bugs over the fields. A rail fence along the road with wild plums and chokecherries every few feet. A cow and calf on pasture. A woodlot over the hill and the winter's cordwood stacked by the shed. The smell of fresh cut hay in the meadow, and fresh brewed coffee at the kitchen window.

That is the kind of country life people dream of. For years, it was what farming families wanted as well, and the principles of conservation farming made it happen. Ponds and streams with well-established riparian edges conserved water and reduced erosion, while woodlots and hedgerows did the same, as well as providing firewood and homes for insect-destroying birds. Wild plants and animals were healthy additions to the farm table.

Now we are losing the trees. Anyone driving the country roads can see it happening– another 50 or 100 acres of forest clear-cut, or another ditch peeled clean of any protective vegetation. And with the trees and shrubs along the roadway itself gone, winter snows now blow into blizzards across the wide open spaces.

Ottawa has always been proud of its forests. Before amalgamation the National Capital Commission found that the Ottawa-Gatineau region was almost 50% treed, making it the most wooded built-up area in Canada. With Ottawa's expansion into its rural periphery in 2001, another assessment indicated that the newer, bigger Ottawa had 40% tree cover, still a respectable figure. Sure, Ottawa cares. Its new Official Plan sets a tree canopy target of 40%, in line with what we had in 2001. It 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.” 

But who is promoting or even tracking these targets? In many areas of rural Ottawa we can’t even meet the minimum 30% forest cover needed for moderate ecosystem health, let alone the recommended 40 or 50%. Large portions of rural Ottawa do not have enough trees to sustain their ecosystems or protect water health. Between 2010 and 2021 approximately 4000 hectares (10,000 acres) of Ottawa woodland were removed. In 2021 alone the net loss was 540 hectares (1334 acres). This has an impact on the whole region. For a start, someone has to be monitoring the forest resource. We need to establish some baseline information for management. If Ottawa wishes to preserve its forests in line with its stated objectives, we should be able to measure how we are doing.

Rural Woodlands Ottawa is a small and dedicated group of citizens that will not sit idle while the deforestation piles on. We have a vision for the rural countryside that includes forests. We will share that vision, with our neighbour’s, with City planners and politicians and with groups that care about the environment. In simple terms, we want to keep rural trees on the agenda. We will work with municipalities, conservation authorities, landowners, and whoever else can help. We would like to help develop standards for monitoring the state of our forests so objectives like those in Ottawa's Official Plan can have meaning. We want to talk about incentives so that individuals don't have to shoulder the full costs of the environmental services they provide. We want people to understand the importance of trees, and end up wanting trees.

Forest cover reduces the frequency of extreme floods. It reduces the runoff of soil and agricultural chemicals and helps maintain healthy groundwater aquifers. Of course, there is also value in the direct benefits of woodlands: providing timber, firewood, syrup, and a place to enjoy nature. And there are some critical changes our city government can make to help preserve that forest cover.

We need to realize that healthy rural forests are vital for cities. We need to find a balance among the competing land uses that leaves a place for forest. The largest contributors to deforestation in Ottawa are agriculture and development. The ecosystem services provided by natural wetlands and forests can outweigh the profit that could be made by farming the same lands, but our tax and incentive programs do not address this. In Southern and Eastern Ontario, where the majority of land is privately owned, private landowners have insufficient economic incentives to plant or keep forests. Consequently, not only are the forests underutilized, they are in fact disappearing altogether. Forests are a public good, and individuals who provide and maintain that public good should be compensated for doing so. Offering tax reductions, carbon credits, grants or other resources could help encourage retention of forests and hedgerows. The City should consider adjusting the tax schedule for all long-standing forests to a rate that is equivalent or below that of agricultural land to encourage retention of mature forests.

Hedgerows along roadways reduce erosion, reduce the risk of wind-blown snow white-outs, and provide habitat for wildlife. In 2022, Ottawa's Public Works had a budget of $977,000 for snow fences. This included wood slat snow fences as well as corn row fences. Instead of paying farmers to leave rows of corn, they could be paid a similar amount to allow the city to plant a windbreak to act as a living snow fence. This makes good sense financially and environmentally as not only would these hedgerows act as snow fences, they would provide wildlife habitat, sequester carbon, reduce soil erosion as well as spring flooding, and improve roadside aesthetics. The city would also benefit with reduced snow removal and salting costs. In some cases the City could re-establish hedgerows in the road allowance it already has. Researchers at the University of Alberta have determined that hedgerows store three times more carbon than the neighbouring fields of grain crops. Living snow fences can be part of a climate solution for Ottawa.

Rural Woodlands Ottawa is a volunteer group dedicated to preserving healthy woodlands in a diverse landscape with woodlots, wetlands, hedgerows and natural open areas. We work with other organizations and the City of Ottawa to raise public awareness and take action to protect our priceless rural woodland heritage. We are serious about providing a voice for the rural woodlands in Ottawa. That is our here and now, and we are in motion. Just how that unfolds and what partnerships we form will depend on what we learn along the way.

Steve Wendt is a steering committee member of Rural Woodlands Ottawa.