Dr. Peter Duinker

Peter Duinker was raised on farms in Ontario and then got degrees in agriculture (BScAgr, Guelph), forest ecology (MES, Dalhousie), and forest management (PhD, UNB). He held the Chair in Forest Management and Policy at Lakehead University during 1988-1998. He then became a Professor in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University from 1998 to 2019. For ten of those years, he was the School’s Director. He is now Professor Emeritus at Dalhousie.

Peter taught and researched a wide range of themes, most of which deal with forests and environmental assessment. Peter got involved in urban-forest issues when, following Hurricane Juan, Halifax put together its Point Pleasant Park Restoration Task Force in fall 2003. He then joined the team preparing the Point Pleasant Park Comprehensive Plan to help with the forest sections. With his students and research assistants, Peter and city staff prepared Halifax’s first Urban Forest Master Plan in 2012. He continued his collaboration with the city until 2022 by providing ongoing monitoring and research in support of plan implementation. Peter’s investigations on urban forests, with his students, addressed diverse topics including citizens’ values, planning, conservation of urban old-growth, naturalization of urban forests, effects of sub-division development on urban-forest biodiversity, effects of climate change on urban forests, establishment of urban orchards, canopy development in urban greenspaces such as cemeteries and golf courses, and others.

At his home in downtown Halifax, Peter is gradually removing the Norway-maple canopy and replacing it with native species associated with Acadian old-growth forests. Peter shares a home with his wife Maggie and, when not chasing scholarly and consulting pursuits, enjoys home-brewing, choral-singing, cycle-touring, home-renovating, high-score golfing, and tree-hugging. With a cadre of junior colleagues, Peter runs a website for dissemination of urban-forest information to the public – www.halifaxtreeproject.com.