Langley City’s Urban Forest: Plant More Trees, Ensure They Are Taken Care Of, Beef Up Tree Protection

This post is part two of my mini-series on Langley City’s draft Urban Forest Management Strategy. In part one, you can learn more about the current health, challenges, and opportunities of Langley City’s urban forest.

The draft Urban Forest Management Strategy has four main goals with proposed action items to help grow our urban forest canopy from 17% today to 20% by 2046 while addressing tree cover equality for our community. The following outlines these goals and proposed actions.

1. Protect and enhance trees, forests, and soils
   • Improve policies and regulations to achieve a better integration of the urban forest within the built environment
   • Enhance ecosystems to support biodiversity and access to nature
   • Grow the urban forest with a focus on tree resilience and equity across neighbourhood
2. Manage the urban forest for its health and resiliency
   • Acquire and integrate tree asset information to the City’s asset management system
   • Transition to a more proactive urban forest management program
   • Evaluate and maintain sufficient staffing and budget resources to deliver defined urban forest service levels
3. Support community partnership
   • Create opportunities to build relationships and work on reconciliation with First Nations through urban forest management
   • Support and expand initiatives to involve community members, landowners, and organizations in urban forest stewardship
4. Monitor progress and adapt to changing circumstances
   • Regularly monitor and report on urban forest change
   • Continuously explore options to collect information and adapt practices to changing conditions

Out of all the actions listed in the Urban Forest Management Strategy, three “big moves” will have the most impact in enhancing our urban forest and growing the tree canopy. In no particular order, they are:

• Plant more trees in neighbourhoods with a low Tree Equity Score (see part one for more information.)
• Ensure the City has the staffing and budget to maintain a growing urban forest
• Increase tree protection and ensure replacement of trees, especially during redevelopment (aka reduce the clear-cutting of lots.)

Langley City is seeking your feedback before presenting a final version of the Urban Forest Management Strategy for Council to consider adopting. Please visit Langley City’s website for more information and complete the survey before October 8th, 2024.