Vancouver’s ‘Great Trees’

Credit: Flickr / Sean Hagen

New project celebrates Vancouver’s great trees

Have a favourite tree? Nominate it for Vancouver Public Space Network’s new tree cataloging program to raise awareness about Vancouver’s urban forest… and win a prize.

Part contest, part research project, Vancouver’s Great Trees is designed to inventory and map the city’s arboreal landscape. As part of the initiative, Vancouverites are invited to submit a photo of their favourite tree, along with a short statement about what makes it so gosh-darned swell.

The photos are then collected on a blog and Google mapped, and each week one entry is randomly selected to win a prize. The competition runs through summer 2010.

“We’re asking for everyone’s help in identifying the stars of the city’s urban forest,” says Andrew Pask, director of the Great Trees initiative. “The idea is to create a permanent record and community-based map of the city’s favourite leafy giants.”
 

The larger goals of the project are to raise awareness about Vancouver’s urban forest and the role that it plays in fostering a liveable, environmentally sustainable city. 

To that end, a tool kit is also being developed of educational resources to enable people to learn about the city’s trees.