Showing posts with label tree canopy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tree canopy. Show all posts

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Keep Buildings Lower than the Treetops!

Sadly, there's not a chance of that - not when a city has once got the "biggering" bug (remember Dr. Seuss's The Lorax?), i.e. not when it yearns to be a hot hip urban centre just like the ones next to it. There was an interesting interview on CBC's On The Island today, about the growing population of seagulls that nest on top of downtown buildings, seeing them as good substitutes for the bare rock islands along the shoreline that are their natural habitat. Were those roof heat islands overshadowed by tree canopies as buildings were a few decades ago, when we still had height restrictions, the problem of bird-poop-covered streets and windows would not arise (or rather, descend).

It is amazing just how hot those concrete-covered heat islands get, both at and above ground level. A comparison study was available at this weekend's Bowker Creek Brush-Up in Oak Bay: artists with tables set up in the sun were sweltering, while those only a few feet away in the shade of trees were putting on their sweaters. That's how powerful the effects of mature shade trees are on the liveability of a place, for wildlife as well as for humans. Imagine how the town would feel in summer with none of those trees.

The gulls seem to like the heat-radiating roofs but the denizens of Bowker Creek wouldn't like them at all: art lovers strolling along the creek were treated to dispays of mother ducks squawking loudly when two otters swam near the half-grown young, before slipping out of the water and nipping into the grassy undergrowth behind the creekbank. We're so lucky still to have vestiges of wildlife in the city, and to have folks like the Bowker Creek Initiative who work to keep the creek healthy.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Serious Tree Talk at "SERIOUS COFFEE" Outlet ("Oaks In Peril")

Tree lovers had a vibrant evening in Victoria's Cook Street village Serious Coffee outlet on May 19th. (A big thank you to managers Sydney and Kevin!)

To go along with the oak portraits on the wall several poets presented verse in celebration of the Garry oak and its habitat. The artists focused on one threatened tree (see "The Last Spring" below) as a plea for the whole of the tree nation. It is being threatened worldwide, as Earth loses her natural vegetative cover (and climate gets warmer). The loss starts with logging and continues with the paving of landscape for urban "development". How do we stop cities from becoming ecological dead zones and heat islands that blight the planet? Passing local laws that preserve the urban tree canopy is one step municipalities can take now.

During the same week as the Oaks In Peril readings at Serious Coffee, the Oak Bay Green Committee and the Bowker Creek Society held a fact-packed information night at Windsor Park pavilion with slides about urban forests and watersheds, plus musical entertainment and refreshments. A questionnaire was passed around asking what you value about trees and what you'd like to see done for them. If you have thoughts on this but didn't get to the gathering, contact the Oak Bay Green Committee at: renedevos@shaw.ca.