Rooted in Community: Why Your Support is Vital to Our Urban Forest’s Future

Ecological and Environmental Importance:

Ash trees are foundational plantings in Alberta’s urban forests and play a life-supporting role in our cities. They are essential for:

• supporting and sustaining biodiversity and resilient ecosystems

• they provide food and shelter for hundreds of species of insects, including pollinators, birds, and mammals

• support entire food webs and diverse microhabitats

• provide essential ecoservices that sustain our quality of life by cooling our communities, cleaning the air we breath by absorbing carbon dioxide, harmful gases like nitrogen oxides and ozone, producing oxygen and are key to managing stormwater/overland flooding

Social Importance:

Ash trees are a large percentage of trees that make up urban forests and are key in contributing:

• to strengthening community connections by encouraging social interaction, fostering stronger relationships between neighbours and increasing feelings of safety

• in the promotion of physical activity and recreation with measureable positive impacts to our mental well-being such as reduced stress and anxiety. This can lead to healthy heart rates and blood pressure

• to beneficial impacts on road safety, reduce crime rates and incidences of violence

• to beautifying our living spaces

Economic Importance:

Ash tree species, Fraxinus genus have been the preferred boulevard tree, second only to elm species, for their cold-hardiness and ideal canopy shape for decades and have been planted extensively in most urban and rural areas in Alberta. Their value and care can be measured and calculated as part of municipal budgeting cycles. Specifically:

• In the City of Edmonton, it is estimated public and private ash trees total approximately 180,000. Public ash trees represent 20% of all boulevard trees. They are valued at $390 Million (City of Edmonton UFAMP, 2021). In the City of Calgary, there are approximately 70,000 public with even more privately-owned ash trees (CBC, 2024).

• These assets support the efficient functioning of cities. The services they provide to the people living in cities amounts to billions of dollars and will vary for each municipality depending on their urban forest demographic. For the City of Edmonton, these benefits are valued at over $2.7 Billion (City of Edmonton UFAMP, 2021). In the City of Calgary, their canopy cover value is estimated at $1.3 billion (Nagy, A. Avenue Calgary, 2021)

• Rural ash shelterbelts in Alberta shield homes, gardens, buildings and keep roads accessible from northwesterly winds, snow and overland flooding. They protect our rich agricultural soils and nutrients from erosion and severe droughts. Over two million ash trees have been planted in rural shelterbelt areas since the program started. These stands of ash trees are at risk

• Tree nursery operations have made significant production investments in supplying ash tree species throughout Alberta for numerous municipalities. Recent commitments are estimated at $10 Million

New:

The City of Edmonton has launched a new community monitoring program for Emerald Ash Borer and Dutch Elm Disease.

“Edmonton's elm and ash trees need you! Become an Urban Forest Ambassador and learn to spot Dutch Elm Disease and Emerald Ash Borer early and help save our trees for future generations. Register for the upcoming training session on July 10 by registering here or contacting communityforestry@edmonton.ca.”