Tree planting partnership invites private landowners to participate in trees for all program

The Niagara Peninsula Tree Planting Partnership (NPTPP) invites private landowners to join collective efforts to bring millions of trees to the Niagara Peninsula watershed, in support of Canada’s goal of planting two billion trees.

The Government of Canada’s 2 Billion Trees (2BT) Program seeks to partner with governments and organizations to plant two billion trees – trees that will capture and store carbon from the atmosphere, improve air and water quality, help to restore nature and biodiversity, cool urban centres and create and support thousands of green jobs. As such, community groups, environmental agencies, and governmental organizations in the Niagara Peninsula watershed have joined to create the NPTPP, with the common interest of supporting this initiative at the local level.

“Canada is dedicated to helping restore and expand Canada’s forests from coast to coast,” says the Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources Canada. “Trees are essential to our lives: they capture carbon, improve air quality and support wildlife, and they are important allies in our fight against climate change. Today’s investment will help increase tree-planting capacity in the Niagara Peninsula watershed — supporting the creation of good, sustainable and local jobs while also fighting lower emissions and supporting cleaner communities.”

The Niagara Peninsula watershed is known as a natural wonder with many environmental assets and unique phenomena and is situated between two Great Lakes. It is the most biodiverse but also threatened ecoregion in all of Canada, part of the Carolinian Zone, and home to globally significant ecosystems, 40 per cent of Canada’s species, and more than 150 species at risk. However, the landscape currently only contributes an estimated 56 per cent of what science recommends as the minimum ecological objective required for healthy and viable ecosystems.

One of the earliest conservation efforts to help mitigate watershed-scale problems such as erosion, flooding, and decades of degraded land and water quality, was planting trees to restore forests. Restoration efforts have since progressed to understand that involving communities helps connect people to their natural environment and leads to better outcomes.

The NPTPP’s new Trees For All initiative for the Niagara Peninsula watershed will engage private landowners from Niagara, Haldimand, and Hamilton, to build the capacity necessary to participate in the Government of Canada’s national tree program, and collectively deliver a local, long-term tree planting plan for impactful and measured results.

The goal today is simple. Private landowners are encouraged to express their interest and register their property for potential consideration in future tree plantings. This first data-gathering phase solely aims to gauge landowner interest to help shape the future of the Trees For All program, with no obligation.

“The opportunity to engage watershed residents in enhancing our unique forests and urban tree canopy is significant,” says Chandra Sharma, Chief Administrative Officer at NPCA. “As so much of the land is private owned, large-scale reforestation initiatives like the federal 2 Billion Trees provide local stewardship opportunities and help incentivize landowners to participate in tree-planting programs. The Trees For All initiative will help strengthen and surpass our existing commitments to add 600 hectares of natural cover, plant more than 1 million native trees across the watershed by 2031 and help mitigate the impacts of climate change in the Niagara Peninsula watershed.”

Private landowners are asked to visit Get Involved NPCA portal to learn more and proceed with registration. This portal is home to important documents for interested participants, a project timeline on this exciting initiative, a confidential mapping tool to register interest and pin locations, and great online engagement tools to provide feedback and share stories and ideas.

For more information about the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, visit www.npca.ca. Follow on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for more updates.

A message from Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority.