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THURSDAY JANUARY 14, 2016
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LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
Y O U R
H O M E T O W N
5
THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND SEE PAGE 15
N E W S P A P E R
Chipping for charity
The New Westminster Firefighters’ Charitable Society is hopeful it raised a good sum of cash at its annual tree-chipping event. Glen Bailey, president of the charitable society, said the timing of the event wasn’t the best for drawing crowds of people wanting to dispose of Christmas trees. While Jan. 9 and 10 is too far from NewYear’s for some folks looking to recycle their trees, Jan. 2 and 3 is too early for others. “We haven’t tallied the money. I am very hopeful,” he said. “For the people who did come by, they were very happy.” In addition to getting their trees chipped, residents enjoyed a barbecue and listened to some jazz music performed by local high school students. Many off-duty firefighters volunteered their time at the two-day event, which also gave new and veteran firefighters a chance to socialize. “It was fun for the firefighters. I am hoping other people saw how much fun we had, and they had fun as well,” Bailey said. – ByTheresa McManus
SO LONG CHRISTMAS: Shane Griffin, above, arrived by bicycle to drop off a Christmas tree at the New Westminster Firefighters’ Charitable Society’s annual treechipping event on the weekend. At right, some youngsters help firefighters deliver a tree to the chipper. For more photos, go to www.newwestrecord.ca. PHOTOS JENNIFER GAUTHIER
New West trees are rapidly declining By Theresa McManus
tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca
New Westminster’s tree canopy has declined by 15 per cent since 2004, but the city has a strategy aimed at growing its tree inventory. Council has adopted an urban forest management strategy that strives to increase the tree canopy from the current 18 per cent to 27 per cent.The tree canopy refers to the area of a city that’s covered when viewed by the air.
“We recognized that trees are often managed at the periphery of city policy.We see trees every day.They define our experience in the city, but we rarely treat them as an aggregate, as an asset for the city,” said Edward Porter of Diamond Head Consulting. “One of the opportunities with the city’s urban forest management study is to look beyond trees in the city and start to look at a forest for the city.” The urban forest management strategy includes 38 actions, including 12 priority actions, aimed at reversing the decline in
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the tree canopy.This would require an additional 8,500 trees to be planted on public lands and 3,300 on private lands by 2035. The city’s urban forest benefits human health and wellness, the ecosystem and city infrastructure and energy, Porter said. A report on the urban forest management strategy notes the tree cover in New West declined four per cent between 1994 and 2004 and by another 14 per cent from 2004 to 2013. In recent years, it’s been declining at a rate of 1.5 per cent annually. Porter said New Westminster’s tree can-
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opy has declined as a result of densification, urban growth and urban trees being in competition with other infrastructure and urban services. With the loss of the tree canopy, he said, the city also loses the benefits that come with the urban forest. The urban forest management strategy intends to protect the urban forest by increasing the canopy cover to 27 per cent citywide, introducing a tree bylaw to protect Continued on page 8
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