Windsor gets $25,000 to help increase tree canopy

Windsor, Ont. -

The City of Windsor received a $25,000 grant from CN EcoConnecxions in partnership with Tree Canada today which will help plant about 60 new trees in public properties across the area.

Five of those trees have been planted at Coventry Garden.

“It's like they validate the great work that we're doing”, said Paul Giroux, the city’s Manager of Forestry.

Donald Craig, community advisor for Tree Canada, feels, “planting the big trees is important and it will be a shorter period of time before they start providing the benefits that trees do”.

Craig says trees provide many benefits including shade in the summer to cool us off and cold wind protection in the winter helping with our energy bills.

“They take in carbon dioxide It's a very industrial area we live in between Michigan and Windsor they are sink for pulling in carbon dioxide and of course they produce oxygen,” said Giroux.

Mayor Drew Dilkens adds, “all of this plays into the climate change masterplan that we have. It helps the carbon footprint but it's good for the environment”.

Back in the ‘80s the city had the lowest coverage of trees in the province.

According to Craig, things started moving in the right direction when the city hired its first urban forester over thirty years ago.

Today the city has over 86,000 trees in parks and residential areas. That accounts for about 19 per cent coverage which is close to the provincial average for large cities.

There has been $3.8 million dollars invested to protect and manage the urban tree canopy.

That helped the city double the number of trees planted annually in the public right of way to 2,000 per year.

“We're doing a lot,” Dilkens said. “We've moved the needle a lot on this front and we continue to do more and with the help of Tree Canada we're going to continue on that path.”