Positive Change: The Future Is Looking Bright for the Canadian Urban Forest Network

Our goals for the CUFN (Canadian Urban Forest Network) and CUFS (Canadian Urban Forestry Strategy) are to foster greater learning, both nationally and internationally, provide a space for people to come together and build a national urban forestry community.

Thanks to the generous support from TD Bank, positive changes have been made in the past two years. Highlights include:

Building partnerships with national and international organizations, including the Canadian Forest Service, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and the Arbor Day Foundation.

Conducting the State of Canada’s Municipal Forests Survey every 3-5 years. Information collected includes details on budgets, inventory systems, canopy cover, bylaws and social considerations.

Rebranding the Canadian Urban Forest Network website, increasing and tracking our membership through the listserv. We now have over 800 members across Canada and we’re seeing more activity through our social media pages (Facebook and Twitter).

Launching a platform to submit news and stories. One of the challenges we have is that communities do not always have access to information from different areas across Canada. We wanted to provide a space for organizations and individuals to share their stories and ideas. Submissions range from personal anecdotes to reflections on scholarly research.

Being involved in two research projects this year: the first was a national needs assessment of municipal urban forestry with the Canadian Forest Service and the second is a National survey of urban forestry research needs with a student from Laval University.

Working to build partnerships with academic institutions to encourage departments to include urban forestry within their curriculum. A recent example is the University of British Columbia’s Bachelors in Urban Forestry.

We are preparing to deliver our 12th Canadian Urban Forest Conference in Laval, Quebec, this coming fall.

Members of the network are kept appraised of all our activities through the list serv. Our membership is free of charge; if you are not a member please join our list.