With this area lacking adequate tree cover that balances nature with development, representatives from Strong Towns Kingsville and Windsor Essex Strong Towns met with a dedicated group of residents at Lakeside Park on May 16 with a goal of creating a detailed inventory of the existing tree count in town to help counter that imbalance.
Utilizing a competitive element, the tree mapping is part of a six-week contest put on by Rooted in Kingsville, with the results being presented to Kingsville town council at a summer meeting.
Focusing primarily on municipal property, residents will record the exact location, genus, species, diameter and health of the trees that they track through the Street Complete app for Android phones or the Every Door app for Apple phones.
Regarding trees as essential infrastructure for Kingsville, Chad Nantais of Strong Towns Kingsville said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure and that’s when I connected with Windsor Essex Strong Towns as they had done a tree count in the City of Windsor recently.”
Nantais continued, “We don’t have the ability to plaster trees all over our bread and butter agricultural economy, so we have to figure out a way to increase the cover in our urban areas. Round one of our three phase campaign is the presentation to council of our inventory, next we want to work closely with homeowners about tree stewardship, and finally work closely with town administration on the future residential developments having adequate tree coverage.”
Strong Towns Kingsville is hoping to see more residents join them in the tree mapping contest that runs until July 1, encouraging those that may have an interest to check out rootedinkingsville.ca for further details.
