The City of Thunder Bay has been recognized for its excellence in urban tree care and planning and has been awarded the 2024 Tree City of the World by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Arbor Day Foundation.
The Tree Cities of the World program inspires cities worldwide to share best practices in urban forestry.
Cory Halvorsen, the City’s manager of parks and open spaces, said the City’s commitment to urban forestry is reflected in the dedication to preserving and expanding the tree canopy.
Properly maintained trees enhance neighbourhoods, increase property values, lower energy costs and support wildlife habitats.
“We applied in late November of last year,” Halvorsen said. “The application needed to outline our program so that they could evaluate whether we met the five criteria.”
He said the criteria included establishing responsibility, setting rules, assessing resources, allocating funds, and celebrating achievements.
Halvorsen said the City has a tree bylaw that’s been in place for a long time and a long history of development and growing a group that includes multiple certified arborists, an urban forester, and an operations supervisor.
“We have a very structured and defined operations and planning group to do this specific type of work and we budget for it, both in operating and capital dollars,” he said.
“We have a digital inventory of our trees on the city streets and in our maintained park spaces. And last year we held an Arbor Day event. That was the last piece that we were able to accomplish last year that allowed us to apply and receive this recognition.”
He added that the award demonstrates that the City “understands and gives proper value” to our urban forests to ensure that they are strong and maintained.
“That’s why we’re doing all this work. It makes the city a better place to be in,” he said.
Halvorson pointed out that a healthy urban forestry controls environmental factors such as balancing out and cooling off temperatures during heat spikes. It also slows down the water during storm events, so the storm sewer and ditch systems have less water going through them quickly when these storm events happen.
“The trees slow down that process and absorb some of the water,” he said. “There’s all the other natural benefits of growing trees in your community that improve air quality and sequester carbon.”
He added if the city saves money by not having to repair infrastructure after storms, because the tree canopy has helped protect that infrastructure, there will be money for other things. Last year the city planted 750 trees during the annual tree plant, which included contracted local businesses for their services. This year, Halvorsen said it will be closer to 1,000 trees
they’ll plant as part of the annual forestry program.
“Our emerald ash borer program, where we’re replacing trees that have been removed, is also generating some local business activity,” he said.
“We do have our own internal operations that do the core maintenance of our existing trees when it comes to the tree planting, specialized tree removals and maintenance. Then we look to the business sector.”
Thunder Bay is among 21 cities across Canada that received the 2024 recognition and one of 210 worldwide. Arbor Day this year in the city will be on May 24.
