If you love our urban trees the Community Trees Matter Network wants to hear from you.
We are looking for people with a variety of skills who care enough to volunteer occasionally. If you are interested in trees, please take a moment to let us know with this short survey.
Formed in the summer of 2018, passionate members and allies of this community-wide group worked to help save 50 trees on Grange Road, and up to 25 in Central Park. Our members repeatedly urged the City of Victoria to dust off its 2013 Urban Forest Master Plan, and to budget for its implementation this year.
We are happy to report Victoria’s mayor and council have been very receptive and have tentatively allocated $1.36 million of new money to the Urban Forest. Final budget decisions will occur in late April.
Our Quaker Meeting owns two lots on Fern Street. We have rented one lot to the city and the North Jubilee Neighbourhood as a green space. It has been naturescaped with native bushes and trees. The other lot on Fern Street holds our heritage Meeting House (building for worship) which is also partly planted with native plants. We are raising funds for a good water conservation irrigation system. One of our members, Gerald Harris, has written a book for children: “Chantay and the Forest” which is a fantasy about a little girl who lived in a high rise condo who called the in the night for the trees from a forest to live in her neighbourhood. The trees decide to stay. Crisis! But the mayor of the city convenes citizens who want to green their lives. Happy ending! I’d love to donate a copy of this charming book to the Victoria city council, esp. if they actually give $1.36 million to Urban Forest. Or maybe to give some incentive?