Photo: Sidney Coles / Capital Daily

In July, Victoria’s mayor and council voted to cut down the giant sequoia that has been a focal point of Centennial Square for past decades, as part of a planned redesign of the space.

Two other large trees will also be removed. These include a healthy sweetgum, and the beautiful Shirofugen Japanese flowering cherry, which was gifted to Victoria by Morioka, Japan, to celebrate the cities’ twinning in May 1985. Cutting it down would not be the city’s first cultural blunder.

In defense of their decision, the city and some councillors have listed a number of reasons:

– It’s the ‘wrong tree in the wrong place’.
– Giant sequoias are not native to BC.
– The soil isn’t ideal.
– Tree roots will soon run into a large underground BC Hydro utility box.
– BC Hydro reportedly wants the tree removed, and it’s ‘a matter of when, not if’.

The staff report which council based its decisions on has not been made available to the public. Yet again, we wonder whether the city may have arranged the facts to fit a decision they’d already made to remove another well-loved public tree.

In fact, many if not most trees the city plants are not native, especially downtown. (See this detailed commentary by arborist and urban forest educator Ryan Senechal.)

Some of our native species, like the Western red cedar (our provincial tree and an essential part of First Nations culture) are highly stressed and even dying, due to climate change.

Some scientists now suggest ‘assisted migration’ or ‘assisted range expansion’ — planting trees that are native to warmer, drier regions some distance to the south. The US government is doing some of this work. Seen in that light, our sequoias give us a head start.

We have not been informed what species the 17 replacement trees would be. But most likely they will not be species that can or will ever grow large.

Yet big healthy trees like the giant sequoia provide by far the greatest ecological benefits. This short video effectively illustrates that point.

The BC Coroner’s Service report on the 2021 heat dome noted large trees can be life-saving to cool the air and protect citizens from extreme heat. We also know they produce oxygen, retain topsoil, remove carbon dioxide from the air and store it, and filter pollutants and wildfire smoke from the air, among many other important benefits.

According to iTree, the Centennial Square giant sequoia is currently likely to:

• have a leaf area of 2,500 square metres,
• store about 7.5 tonnes of carbon,
• produce more than 21 kg of oxygen per year,
• intercept more than 21 cubic metres of water, and
• sequester more than 8 kg of carbon per year.

In addition, the tree emits about 59 cubic metres of water through evapotranspiration, which provides significant help to cool the area during summer heat.

And bonus – all those benefits just increase, as the sequoia grows bigger over time.

Sadly, 17 saplings would ‘replace’ only a fraction of those ecosystem services. In fact it would actually take several hundred saplings to equal those benefits.

There has been no guarantee that the 17 ‘replacement’ trees would be native trees, that they would be species that could ever grow large, or that they could even survive. As Senechal also noted, our noticeably hotter, drier climate is making it much harder to keep saplings alive for even a few years.

In contrast, the sequoia – despite the city’s description – is healthy and appears to be thriving. Sequoias can live up to 3,000 years.

Since we cannot recreate or truly replace these large trees and their benefits, many feel it is the underground BC Hydro box that should be moved, if necessary, rather than the tree.

However, Senechal assures us many professionals know how to mitigate underground root issues, and that the root systems of hundreds of city trees are also interacting with underground utilities, including city and Hydro infrastructure.

We also know BC Hydro is not overly concerned about climate change. Its policies have resulted in death sentences for hundreds of mature trees on the south Island.

As Senechal noted, the city’s reasons for removing the giant sequoia would not meet its own criteria for any citizen to remove a protected tree on private property. Clearly, the City of Victoria should explore every alternative to cutting these trees down, just as they would require of any owner of private property.

We have tree protection bylaws because it is a fact that both privately and publicly owned trees provide enormous benefits to the public good.

The city of Victoria declared a climate emergency in 2019. Since then, we have experienced worsening drought, increased flooding, and longer, hotter summers.

That same year, the city of Victoria also chose to remove the popular ‘Innovation tree’ – a healthy, 40-year-old birch tree on Humboldt Street.

At that time, Mariann Burka, a member of Community Trees Matter Network, submitted a FOI request in order to investigate the city’s decision-making process. When it appeared to prove that little thought had been devoted to retaining the tree, she wrote a list of recommendations to help the city avoid a similar situation in future.

Clearly the city did not follow her recommendations calling for transparency, and to develop serious and meaningful alternatives to tree removal, in order to ensure trees are removed only as a last resort.

There is more reason than ever before to both keep as many large trees as possible, and to plant many more.

In these times of increasing climate emergency, we expect the city to act as a role model: setting an example for all on how to choose wisely, on behalf of the public’s highest good. There is still time. We hope they will step up.

References:

– Report of Key Findings and Recommendations
Re: City of Victoria’s Tree Removal Decision Process, by Mariann Burka
Not much seems to have changed since 2019, when the city of Victoria removed the Humboldt tree against the public’s wishes. “…The evidence demonstrates a lack of understanding, indifference, and at times a wanton disregard, for this tree and trees in general.” – Mariann Burk

Old friend must fall to make room for revamped Centennial Square
Victoria staff submit Centennial Square redesign report
‘Wrong tree for the wrong space’: Centennial Square redesign passes first step, sequoia tree to be removed