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Public engagement for urban forest strategy underway
Burnaby residents can share their thoughts in an online survey until Feb. 10, 2025

Last month, the City of Burnaby published a draft of its urban forest strategy, which was also discussed during council’s last meeting of 2024 on Dec. 16. Now the city has launched an online survey for Burnaby residents to read the strategy and provide their feedback.
The urban forest strategy is a 109-page document detailing what Burnaby intends to do with its trees and how it will maintain existing trees and plant more trees in the city. On the sixth page, there is a pyramid diagram illustrating the overall strategy.
At the top of the pyramid is the overall vision for the strategy, which is 40% canopy cover by 2075. At the bottom of the pyramid are the 68 actions the city needs to take to achieve this vision, divided into “quick starts” and “big moves” or, to put it plainly, short-term and long-term actions. The mid-sections of the pyramid comprise the strategies and goals.

Diagram illustrating Burnaby’s new Urban Forest Strategy. Photo: City of Burnaby
During the Dec. 16 meeting, Melinda Yong, a city parks planner, described the strategy as an “ambitious, aspirational target.” Yong added that the strategy is “an opportunity for the city and city staff to aim to improve tree canopy or maximize tree canopy.”
The urban forest strategy came up again during the first meeting of the year of the Environment Committee on Jan. 20, 2025. Committee members had some interesting comments and questions to add to the conversation.
“I was wondering, did you take into consideration the denudation of forest for the two fire halls that have been constructed as well as the tree removal for the Cameron Community Centre?” said resident representative Tara Shushtarian.
According to the strategy document, “Future canopy change was modelled assuming that approximately 325 hectares, or 11% of Burnaby’s canopy, could be removed over the next 25 years. Two mortality scenarios were also tested: a low 2.2% mortality rate and a high 4.5% mortality rate.”
The strategy states that:
“To achieve 40% canopy cover by 2050:
At 2.2% average tree mortality, 20,000 trees per year would need to be planted on public and private land
At 4.5% average tree mortality, 38,000 trees per year would need to be planted on public and private land
To achieve 40% canopy cover by 2075:
At 2.2% average tree mortality, 8,000 trees per year would need to be planted on public and private land
At 4.5% average tree mortality, 18,000 trees per year would need to be planted on public and private land.”

An area of Burnaby on the corner of Gaglardi Way and Lougheed Highway which was cleared of trees for the Trans Mountain Pipeline to go through. Photo: Lubna El Elaimy
The staff members presenting the strategy to the Environment Committee acknowledged that achieving these goals while attempting to fill the need for housing will be a challenge.
“We’re seeing more people using our parks. We’re seeing more densification. The challenge is, how do we not just maintain and keep our tree canopy, but grow it,” said Andre Isakov, the city’s director of parks, recreation, and culture planning. “I think with this strategy, we’re trying to be really ambitious with an overarching 40% canopy target, recognizing that we’d rather be overly ambitious and not reach that target than be under-ambitious and then reach that target. So we do want to be bold about it, but recognizing that the real pressure is the growth that we have to balance within that.”
In order to provide feedback on the urban forest strategy, residents can find the full text of the strategy document on the city’s Your Voice public engagement platform. They can also take the survey, which will be open until Feb. 10. The city will host two open houses, one online via Zoom on Feb. 4 and the second on Feb. 5 at Christine Sinclair Community Centre. To participate in the online open house, residents would need to email [email protected].
This piece was made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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