City seeks new urban forester and new urban forestry plan

Thunder Bay - The City of Thunder Bay is currently hiring a new urban forester, according to the city's manager of parks and open spaces.

"We're still in the recruitment process, so the position is vacant right now," said parks manager Cory Halvorsen. "(We) are actively recruiting and look forward to completing the hiring in the coming weeks." Halvorsen added that the city's other forestry positions have been filled, including a forestry technician, an operations supervisor, and some arborists.

The city's former urban forester, Daniel Corbett, resigned publicly in 2024, citing what he called "mismanagement" of the city's urban forest strategy.

The current urban forestry management plan dates back to 2011 and makes more than 20 key recommendations (out of over 140 total) aimed at better managing the city's trees and shrubs. These recommendations include diversifying the tree canopy, establishing routine maintenance cycles, improving budget planning and tracking, strengthening tree protection bylaws, investing in new technology, and increasing public education efforts. The plan also called on the city to prepare for the emerald ash borer, which was expected to arrive in the city by 2016.

Halvorsen said one of the new forester's main goals will be to draft a new plan for city council to approve. He added that much of the existing 2011 document remains relevant today, so this will be more of an update than a complete overhaul.

"We've been doing preliminary reviews over the past few years," Halvorsen said. "This document has been around for a while, and it needs updating now." The existing plan called for an update in 2022, and while that didn't happen, Halvorsen said the arrival of the emerald ash borer and the drafting of a specific plan for it have guided much of the city's work since then.

"We're not looking to introduce a brand-new approach," he said of the updated management plan.

Councillor Andrew Foulds said getting urban forest management right is crucial, noting he was the long-time chair of Thunder Bay's Earthcare Committee until recently.

He added that a healthy urban forest has many benefits, including sequestering more carbon (thereby helping the city meet its goal of becoming a net-zero greenhouse gas emitter by 2050), beautifying the city, boosting property values (not to mention providing windbreaks and natural cooling for homes), improving biodiversity so the city's canopy is more resilient to blights and invasive species, and providing more evenly distributed shade to reduce "heat islands," which are concentrated areas of higher temperatures within the city.

Foulds added that the public should treat trees like roads or other infrastructure: these assets require ongoing maintenance.

"We need to be more thoughtful and more strategic, and we need to invest resources to ensure trees can survive 40 or 50 years or more," he said.

In addition to drafting a new management plan, Halvorsen said other priorities for urban forestry include continuing to manage the emerald ash borer (by removing infected ash trees and replacing them with other species, as well as treating a certain number of existing ash trees with insecticide), performing proactive maintenance, and increasing the number of trees planted.

"Every year we lose a certain number of trees, whether it's due to EAB or the natural cycle of trees, and we offset those losses by planting new trees each year," Halvorsen said.

Source: https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/city-seeks-new-urban-forester-and-new-urban-forestry-plan-10102255