The city of Windsor is launching a two-year project to inventory every tree on city-owned property.
Council has agreed to hire Mississauga-based Urban Forest Innovations to carry out the project at a cost of $464,000.
Windsor’s Corporate Leader of Parks, Recreation, Culture and Facilities, Jan Wilson, says with over 100,000 trees to count, it won't be an easy task.
She says they'll be looking at a number of factors.
"First step would be doing a full inventory that takes a look at the types, the species, the condition, the age of the trees in our city," says Wilson. "Once we have all of that information, it will lead to the next phase which is the development of our Urban Forest Management Plan."
She calls the tree inventory just one piece of the management plant.
"If we have too many old growth trees and not enough younger trees at different stages growing up, we're going to lose our tree canopy at a faster rate," says Wilson. "So it will help us plan on where to plant these trees to make sure that our whole tree asset is healthy."
Windsor Parks and Recreation Executive Director Jan Wilson (photo via City of Windsor)
The tree inventory data collection will paid for through the city's Capital Tree Maintenance budget.
Wilson says the assessment will be a useful tool going forward.
"It's something very important for the city. Our trees are an amazing asset for us, so we really want to protect them," she says. "It will help our city council in making decisions on how to resource and properly fund our trees so that they're well cared for and preserved for the future."
The final report is expected to come back to council in the fall of 2020.