Axe falls on trees at alarming rate
SURREY: Growth pressure south of Fraser River behind increasing numbers of felled trees, city report says
Healthy trees on private property in Surrey are being chopped down at a frantic and increasing pace in recent years, according to data in a city report.
Nearly 5,800 trees were given the axe by property owners and developers in 2013. By 2016, following year-after-year increases, that number had jumped to nearly 9,900, and this year it’s on pace to break 10,000 by a wide margin.
All that chopping is a result of “growth pressure south of the Fraser River,” according to the report. As major development projects spread across the city, trees are being squeezed out by pavement and buildings.
Despite the falling number of trees on private land, Neal Aven, the city’s urban forestry manager, isn’t overly concerned.
“I would say on the whole, the city’s green infrastructure is in good shape,” Aven said in an interview.
Helping to offset all the cutting, city staff and volunteers have planted more than 210,000 trees along city streets and in parks over the past 11 years, Aven said. More than 59,000 of those have gone in from 2013-16, according to the report.
Some of those trees have been paid for by the same developers who are responsible for the tree-cutting because, as Aven explained, the city has a replacement policy for trees that get chopped down.
If a developer wants to cut down one tree, they generally need to replace it with two trees, Aven said. Some trees, like Alder or cottonwoods, are replaced at a oneto-one ratio.
But there’s often not enough room for replacement trees to be planted on private land after it has been developed. In that case, developers are required to pay into Surrey’s Green City Fund to the tune of $400 per replacement tree.
“The city uses that fund to plant trees along streets where trees might not have otherwise been planted in the past,” Aven said. It’s also used to plant trees in parks and to expand forested and natural areas, he said.
But the trees being planted on city lands aren’t exactly equals to those lost on private lands, pointed out Deb Jack, president of Surrey Environmental Partners, a collection of nearly a dozen environmentally active groups.
Only about one quarter of the 210,000 trees the city has planted since 2006 are larger than seedlings or container trees, and that makes a difference. Smaller trees are less likely to survive than larger ones, which tend to be fitted with water bags that are “assiduously attended to by the city,” Jack said.
Young trees also provide very little shade or habitat.
“We are losing canopy far faster than can be replaced,” Jack said. “Ultimately, the ratio will get better, but trees aren’t considered to be mature or getting into the mature stage until they’re around about 40 years old.”
Jack said her group would like to see more large trees planted each year.