BlackburnNews.com photoBlackburnNews.com photo
Windsor

Tree planting urged in Windsor after province cuts program

The movement by conservationists to plant trees is more important in the face of provincial cuts, according to Forests Ontario.

The non-profit organization is using a Windsor tree-planting event from over the weekend as a springboard to encourage people to plant trees after the provincial government cut a program to plant 50-million trees across the province. The government said the program, begun in 2008, was being eliminated in a cost-cutting move.

The news is discouraging for Forests Ontario, and its director of operations, Kerry McLaven, told BlackburnNewsWindsor.com that trees are certainly needed in the Windsor-Essex region, specifically for the benefits trees bring.

"Flooding is one of those very simple things that without those trees to filter that water through the soil, we're going to have increases in floods," said McLaven. "Not to mention local temperature extremes in communities, where you don't have that shade from trees."

McLaven said Forests Ontario has an excellent partner in the Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA), and hundreds of thousands of trees will be planted in Windsor-Essex this year, but beginning in 2020, it's a question mark.

"Over 450,000 trees have been planted since 2008," said McLaven. "That's a huge number of trees and of landowners who have participated in this program to date. We're also, luckily this spring, we're going to be planting another 40,000."

The forest industry plants 68 million trees per year in an effort to regenerate forest land where they have cut trees down, which is a legal requirement sustaining forest management on public lands. This is separate from the provincial program, which put trees on private lands.

While fewer than half a million trees are being put in the ground this year, McLaven said more can be done.

"We can't stop now," said McLaven. "Any effort that we can work toward planting more trees is going to be a huge value."

For complete information about tree planting and maintenance, visit Forests Ontario's official website.

Read More Local Stories