Your support is requested to save trees slated for removal on Finnerty Road. These tree are in the median (which would be removed as part of the project) and adjacent to the southbound lane (opposite side of the road from the UVic Child Care Centre, under the Hydro power lines).
Please copy and paste the letter below, edit as you wish, and send to the following people:
council@saanich.ca
mayor@saanich.ca
To Saanich Mayor and Council:
We are writing to thank you for your quick response to neighbourhood concern about the 50 trees on Grange Road. We are relieved and grateful you have chosen to find an alternative that will retain these important, healthy mature trees. We are also grateful you have chosen to retain and uphold the level of protection for Haro Woods, a beloved park, irreplaceable Douglas fir forest, and wildlife corridor.
However, we are also concerned to hear that Saanich plans to remove several trees, some quite large, to make a cycling lane on Finnerty Road. Some of us are cyclists, yet we don’t see an urgent need for more asphalt or a cycling path on Finnerty Road — especially at the cost of mature trees.
We understand and appreciate that Saanich has a policy of replacing trees with two saplings. However, we know it can take 200 or more saplings to duplicate the health and ecosystem services provided by a single mature tree.
As our region is already facing difficult and expensive results of climate change, and large trees can reduce the effects of climate change by storing significant amounts of carbon, we simply must take the time, money and effort to work around and retain them.
Large trees must also be preserved, because our need for the many health and economic benefits they continuously give us will only increase. With just 12 years to try to keep climate change below 1.5C, every tree matters now.