Protecting the Urban Forest

What does the Urban Forest have to do with kayaking? Plenty, for paddlers who live in a city. Most of the time we get to spend on the water is at the edges of our city -- or right in the middle, when we're on the Gorge! 

When it's hot in town, the neighbourhoods with trees are shaded and cool. When it's raining, the trees drink up much of the damp from the ground underfoot. And for purely visual enjoyment, a bit of Urban Forest is pleasant. I've paddled on urban waterways, and the ones with trees & brush along the banks were the best places to paddle. Give me a stretch of working harbour bracketed and broken up with tiny park-lets of green (road allowances and shoreline access points) any day over a shoreline of condominiums! What comes back to me, over and over, from my time on the Red Deer River is the breeze blowing me great gusts of pine and fir scent from a clump of trees on one shore... then I'd go round a bend and get gusts of sage and dust from the next riverbank.

Well then -- trees are good. And the municipality of Saanich is proposing amendments to their Tree Protection Bylaw. These amendments are intended to protect and enhance the Urban Forest. Here's a press release sent by Saanich for residents to consider:

A report from the Director of Parks and Recreation dated February 25, 2014 regarding the proposed amendments to the Tree Preservation Bylaw will be considered by Saanich Council at a Committee of the Whole meeting to be held on Monday, March 10, 2014, from 7:30 pm in the Council Chambers, Saanich Municipal Hall, 770 Vernon Avenue.
The details of the proposal are outlined in the report which is available at: www.saanich.ca/tree-preservation-bylaw.
You are invited to attend the meeting and make representation to Council on the matter if you so choose. Correspondence may be submitted for inclusion in the meeting agenda via mail to the address noted above, or by email, and should be received no later than 4:00 pm on the day of the meeting. All correspondence submitted to the District of Saanich in response to this notice will form part of the public record and will be published in a meeting agenda.
If you have any questions or require additional information with respect to the proposed amendments, please contact Saanich Parks at 250-475-5522. If you have any questions with respect to meeting procedures, please contact Legislative Services at 250-475-1775 or by email