Ontario’s boreal forest north of Lake Superior is one of the largest intact forests left in the world. The same cannot be said for the southern part of the province which, once covered with forests, has now been cut down to make way for development and agriculture. Though there are many issues inherent to forest management, and the forestry industry in the north, urban forestry is often left out of our conversations about deforestation. Southern Ontario’s forests, the Greater Golden Horseshoe region, is disappearing at a rapid rate. The Greater Golden Horseshoe region, which includes the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is the most densely populated and industrialized in Canada, once had nearly continuous forest cover. It represented a mixed forest that includes species of maple, ash, oak, and hemlock. After centuries of settlers clearing for agriculture and urban development, much of this was lost. Only about 25 per cent of the forest cover remains, as the province has favoured using or selling the land for the promotion and development of productive uses of the land—usually for primary production and extraction.
The most significant on-going threat is urban development and redevelopment. Trees are frequently being cut down during construction, which creates challenging conditions that impede the growth of trees. Unfortunately, deforestation of urban forests and trees to clear land for development is hardly considered in planning processes. Most large developments are private undertakings, so they are not captured under our provincial impact assessment legislation. Furthermore, even public projects receive exemptions for their planning processes. This lack of sufficient impact assessment facilitates the continual destruction of urban trees in favour of development.
This is an issue of the utmost concern for a variety of reasons. Primarily, as the climate crisis worsens and cities begin to see more extreme temperatures, the role of forest coverage can make a huge difference. For example, according to modelling, this summer during the Vancouver heatwave a study found that in neighbourhoods with dense tree cover, a pedestrian standing directly under a tree canopy would experience temperature reductions upwards of 17 degrees Celsius. Direct shading matters, but so does the cooling effect of water passing through a tree’s limbs and leaves, and its evaporation. Increase the canopy, and trees could drive temperatures down across an entire neighbourhood. Trees improve air quality, moderate flooding, and are crucial for biodiversity. A 2014 report released by Toronto-Dominion Bank estimated the value of the 10 million trees in Toronto’s ravines system at $7 billion. Interestingly, it noted that the forests absorb air pollutants, moderate the climate, and reduce the strain on the city’s water infrastructure reachin annual benefits worth $7.95 a tree. A recent report by the City of Toronto also estimated that Toronto’s urban forest stores over 1.1 million metric tonnes of carbon. As urban dwellers we often unknowingly depend on urban green spaces to provide more than just access to nature; forests everywhere, especially in large urban settings, are the lungs residents depend on.
There are untold equity issues embedded in the issue of urban deforestation. An analysis of communities in the Golden Horseshoe region found impacts connected to race where trees are planted and cut down. A report from the University of Toronto found that “in Toronto, there is a measurable inequality of access to urban tree canopy based on median household income.” This pattern of inequality is found across all of Canada’s biggest cities and has been named the “shade deficit.” This disparity is likely to grow as climate scientists found that the heat wave experience in the Pacific Northwest this summer was made 150 times more likely due to human-induced climate change. By the 2040s, “these events could occur every five to 10 years.” Sadly, this goes to show that because of the development of resources for productive uses, the social and environmental costs are too often borne by poorer and marginalized communities.
One of the reasons urban deforestation has run rampant is because forest management is under provincial jurisdiction, and municipalities are often ill-equipped to manage forestry issues. Even in situations where municipalities in Southern Ontario are empowered to enact by-laws to address forest management, they often fall short of their aims. Ontario’s Municipal Act enables municipalities to pass by-laws that protect trees on private and public property from removal or damage, but such by-laws are not mandatory. Additionally, municipalities struggle to keep up with inspections and issuing orders. The lack of impact assessment for planning processes is another pitfall that perpetuates this issue, and clearly does not achieve the purpose of the Act to wisely manage and protect the environment for Ontarians.
One of the biggest barriers to confronting urban deforestation, which ties into discussions we’ve had in class regarding the nature of ownership of natural resources, is that much of the tree coverage in Southern Ontario is on private land. Private landowners have little incentive to plant trees or keep trees on their land. Possibly, one way to deal with these issues of private ownership without a mass regulatory reform of how property law works, which is all but unfathomable in this day and age, is to try and shift people’s understanding of urban trees from a financial burden or risk to a benefit that should be valued for non-monetary reasons.