Leaf into action

Out on a Limb by Erna Buffie is a 100-plus page, digest-sized paperback packed with a powerful message about the importance of preserving and growing Winnipeg’s urban forest.

It’s one of those rare books where not a single word is wasted. This is not a sentimental ode to trees but rather a passionate call to immediate action.

Published this year by Great Plains Press, Buffie’s work is the third instalment in the City Project series. The series’ editors are Emma and Michel Durand-Wood. Together with Buffie, all three are grassroots activists who do not shirk from citizen-led action to preserve Winnipeg’s tree canopy.

As a documentary filmmaker, Buffie worked with CBC’s acclaimed series, The Nature of Things, for more than 20 years. She directed Smarty Plants, an award-winning 2012 documentary which uncovers the real secret world of plants. She also directed episodes of the incomparable Canadian documentary series, Recreating Eden, which ran for five seasons on CBC.

Buffie writes that her love of the natural world began at her family’s log cabin tucked into the boreal forest a few kilometres east of the Manitoba border with Ontario, but was also influenced by Winnipeg’s West End neighbourhood. She and her partner have lived in Wolseley since 2010, a community known for its history of protecting mature trees.

Buffie is the founder and former chair of Trees Please Winnipeg which was formed in the immediate aftermath of the devastating October 2019 ice storm. Thirty thousand trees on public property were damaged. Impacted trees on private property numbered in the tens of thousands.

Perfect storm

With the combination of the growing loss of our city’s mature elm canopy and the arrival in 2017 of the emerald ash borer, a destructive pest that has killed hundreds of millions of ash trees in North America, it was a perfect storm magnified at the time by the city’s lack of a fully funded, comprehensive urban forest strategy.

This became the catalyst for a lobbying effort by Trees Please for a sustainable urban forestry budget.

In her book, Buffie makes a clear and detailed case for the critical role urban forests play in boosting climate resiliency and the immense benefits trees provide in our daily lives. She lays bare the stark reality of tree inequity where wealthy neighbourhoods have lush canopies and access to cooling shade but “a lack of tree cover in neighbourhoods where incomes are low and racial diversity is high.”

Trees are the gold standard for natural, inclusive beauty. Buffie asks, “What can we do to climate-proof our neighbourhoods and create safe spaces for our fellow creatures? What do we want our cities to look like 25 or 50 years from now? How did we get so disconnected from nature and how do we turn that around?”

She details the fight by citizen advocates as well as the need for urban woodlands such as Lemay Forest and Save our Seine. She shares her vision for a greener, more sustainable and biodiverse future. And she does not pull any punches on what our city’s decision-makers need to do.

At the recent Trees Count Town Hall on April 20, which was hosted by Trees Please, Buffie told a packed audience of more than 100 people that Winnipeg is losing between 6,000 and 10,000 trees every year. In 2021, Winnipeg faced a significant tree backlog with only 19 to 20 per cent of removed public trees being replaced.

But thanks to groups like Trees Please, Trees Winnipeg and a network of 30 neighbourhood residents’ associations that advocate for the city’s urban forest, there has been a significant improvement in public tree replacement. Planting has increased to over 6,400 trees annually, nearly matching the 6,508 trees removed in 2024.

“But here’s the rub,” says Buffie.

“We are losing thousands of trees on private land, and those trees are not being counted. Eighty to 90 per cent of Winnipeg’s three million trees sit on private land.”

Oldest areas hit hardest

The biggest tree losses are happening in our city’s oldest neighbourhoods, she said. In Buffie’s neighbourhood alone, over 3,000 trees were lost between 2015 and 2021.

What’s needed, says Buffie, is a private tree bylaw. But while the city is working on a consolidated public tree bylaw to protect trees on city property (on boulevards, in parks), there is no plan to create bylaws to protect private trees.

“More than 20 Canadian cities already have a private tree bylaw,” said Buffie. A private tree bylaw regulates the cutting, injuring and indiscriminate removal of trees located on private property.

Trees Please is now planning to challenge candidates in the upcoming civic election to make a pledge to take specific actions to protect and maintain Winnipeg’s urban forest.

When I talked to Buffie following the Trees Count Town Hall, she said she was impressed by the number of people who attended. She was also grateful for the support of the many groups, including Climate Action Manitoba, Trees Winnipeg and Bird Friendly Cities, who set up information booths.

One of the key outcomes of the meeting, she said, was a discussion about how to reach more people with the message about trees. With the discovery in recent weeks of a significant new infestation of emerald ash borer affecting dozens of trees in Winnipeg’s Glenwood area, Buffie says the real battle to save our urban canopy starts now.

“We need action immediately,” she said. “One of the things we told city council over and over again is that we stood to lose 50 per cent of our urban canopy within a matter of decades because of the combination of Dutch elm disease and EAB. That threat still sits on the table. It’s not an option to cut the budget. They’re going to have to continue to add to the urban forestry budget.”

But every tree needs protection, she said, not only public trees. “There’s a need for more public education about the value a single tree provides. Its value is enormous whether it is cleaning the air, sequestering carbon or preventing your basement from flooding, because tree roots absorb so much water. The services trees provide are astonishing.”

Trees are one of the best natural defences against climate change our city has, says Buffie. “If we lose 50 per cent of our canopy, that places this city in a very vulnerable situation as temperatures continue to rise. We really need to start planting trees in our yards. In low-income neighbourhoods, the city has a responsibility to help people plant trees.”

Are you planning to plant a tree this spring or want to learn more about the vital importance of urban forests? Pick up a copy of Out on a Limb at McNally Robinson Booksellers or Chapters Indigo. You will be inspired to plant and care for our shared urban forest.

Looking for affordably priced trees? Trees Winnipeg will offer a diverse selection of trees sourced from Manitoba-based farms at its annual Spring Releaf Sale. The online sale starts May 14. Pickup is scheduled for May 30 at Fort Whyte Buffalo Crossing. For more details, visit releaf.tw.

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