Four potential methods of environmental protection received support from Ottawa residents at a city-sponsored workshop about tree conservation earlier this month.
Dubbed Tree Celebration, the workshop sought views from participants on whether the city should adopt new approaches to conserving trees on private land.
A concept paper was presented by city staff to a one-hour round table forum of 18 participants, including tree experts from environmental protection organizations such as Tree Canada, The Ottawa Forest and Greenspaces Advisory Committee and South Nation Conservation.
The new methods are Stewardship and Program Promotion, Planning and Development Review, Conservation of Distinctive Trees and Tree Planting Compensation Program.
Stewardship mainly seeks to raise public awareness of the value of trees, while development review focuses on having a tree conservation by-law enacted.
The concept paper explains in part that the Compensation Program would draft the level of reparation necessary for the riddance of a given tree.
The worth would then either be in the form of a number of trees of a standard planting stock, or the monetary substitute cost of the tree.
Martha Copestake, a forester with City’s Environmental Sustainability Division, said some contributions made during the discussion were helpful. She particularly found taking the campaign to children at school to be innovative.
“I think targeting children in schools and promoting the importance of trees to kids is a good idea. I was in school when recycling was introduced and they told us it was important. And I remember we would go home and push our parents. Now, it is working,” Copestake said.
Copestake said when all the consultative workshops have been conducted, conservation experts will incorporate the feedback and recommend a new strategy.
One participant disagreed with the idea of preservation of distinctive trees, reminding the panel that trees are not ornaments but living things vital to the eco-system. She said all trees are important because even those not directly useful to humans have basic necessities for other forms of life.