Helping to protect Toronto's heritage trees

Helping to protect Toronto's heritage trees. This giant red oak is located in the Sheppard Avenue and Weston Road area. Photo Courtesy/EDITH GEORGE

This is why the Ontario Urban Forest Council (OUFC) works to raise public awareness and convince government to provide legislation to protect trees that are as historically significant as our heritage buildings, said Jack Radecki, executive director of OUFC.

The OUFC is a Toronto-based organization that began in 1963 as the Ontario Shade Tree Council, changing its name to what it is today about 10 years ago. Their goal is not only to educate the public about a tree's significance, but also help people champion it.

"We want to be the umbrella group for networking for community urban forestry, so all the small communities that may not have urban forestry programs or anyone who is worried about their trees...we want to be the resource for them," he said.

The group provides workshops, educational tools and hosts events to achieve this goal. They also launch projects such as the Ontario Heritage Tree Alliance (OHTA).

Created about four years ago, this project aims to garner more protection of heritage trees and establish clear rules they can't be cut down or the areas in which they grow can't be developed.

Radecki said the Ministry of Culture designates land and buildings, but only some trees through the Ontario Heritage Act. However, the OHTA wants, and are working toward, better recognition of the importance of trees from the Ministry of Culture because a heritage designation is the highest achievement obtainable for a tree.

Radecki said his group also wants the federal or provincial government to provide funding for urban forestry programs.

"They don't and it's terrible...so if we get the funds, we'll hand them out to communities to help them with their programs," he said.

The Ontario Heritage Tree Alliance was created as a resource for communities and individuals to help recognize, identify, protect and get certain trees designated as heritage trees. Radecki said they created a toolkit that teaches people how to go on a tree hunt and start the process.

"There are many trees in Toronto that are nominated but not designated, but it takes a lot of work and dedication by individuals to get it done," he said.

Radecki said heritage trees are not just large and old, they have stories attached to them or some cultural or historical significance.

For example, in Toronto on Laing Street, there is a large maple tree where Alexander Muir lived when he wrote Canada's national song, The Maple Leaf Forever. There is also an Oak tree on Jane Street near Bloor Street that was recently designated.

"It's a tree that falls along the Carrying Place Trail so a portage route for not only the native Indians but also the explorers, and it's a tree that's along the portage route along the Humber River," he said.

Fran Moscall, director and project coordinator for Ontario Heritage Tree Alliance, said a heritage tree is defined as "a notable specimen because of its size, form, shape, beauty age, colour, rarity, genetic constitution or other distinct features, a living relic that displays evidence of cultural modification," which is only part of the definition.

"It includes not only the physical, the genetics, but it also includes anything that has to do with folklore, legend or myth or species that may be disappearing," she said.

Moscall said currently there are only about seven trees protected by the Ontario Heritage Act, so her group is hoping legislation gets changed so trees are protected first in the individual municipalities, than provincially through the OHTA.

In the meantime, Moscall said using the toolkit is a great way for students or community members to get together and go out on tree hunts, to search trees that once deemed applicable, will become heritage trees. Recently, in Oakville, two trees were designated and it became a community affair.

"People are getting together and they go out on tree hunts and look for trees," Moscall said. "...At the end when they selected the trees that merited being a heritage tree they had a launch celebration, they had the mayor...it's an amazing educational tool for children," she said.

Radecki said people assume trees are protected and valued, but they're not. People have to champion them. And why should people care? Besides some of these trees having heritage significance, trees provide oxygen, filter pollution and also provide shade and beauty in yards and landscape.

He also said people are under the misconception if you cut a 400-year-old tree down, it can be replaced by a few new ones, but that isn't the case.

"It's about the leaf count so you don't plant one small tree for every big tree cut down. It probably takes 5,000 small trees to replace one large oak tree or maple," he said. "What you have to do is count the leaves, not the trees. A small tree may have 50 leaves and a big tree may have 50,000, so you do the math."

To learn more or get involved in the OUFC or OHTA, visit www.oufc.org