Trust in Trees with guest Toni Ellis

Trust in Trees

Mature trees are evocative. People around the world, have a visceral reaction to big trees. And while we love trees for their  aesthetic value, their shade, and their importance to the wildlife habitat, as well as their role in storm water management, we are now beginning to see the value they play in helping mitigate climate change.

my guest this week on #ForWhatitsWorthwithBlakeMelnick is @ToniEllis. Toni  was one of the founders of the blue box program in Toronto. Certainly recognized as one of the first major, community - based recycling initiatives in North America.

In 2019, she moved on to found #TreeTrust. A not-for-profit designed to advocate for the  preservation of mature trees in communities across Ontario.

Music for today's show is from @BenHunter's new record, #Lucky". Check it out at benhunter.org and listen to the interview with Ben on #TheSpace[inbetween]

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Transcript

Blake Melnick:  [00:00:00] Welcome Tony. Thanks so much for agreeing to be on the show, and I'm really interested to hear more about you and about tree trust. So let's begin,  with a little information about you.  Tell me about your background  and how you became interested in the environmental movement in tree trust specifically.

Toni Ellis: Okay, well, I'm first. It's great to be here. Thank you so much. I'm really happy to have an opportunity to talk about trees and tree trust. So thank you. 

Blake Melnick: Oh, you're welcome.  

Toni Ellis: So my background is, , I've been  long, interested in the environmental,  world of, I guess environmental change.

And,  I guess I got my real start of, believe it or not in. Ottawa,  working as a volunteer with pollution probe, where we picked up fine paper for recycling using an old beat up F150 Ford pickup truck. And,  when I think about it, now, this is going back into the.  Mid seventies. And, , we would sail into government buildings and [00:01:00] pick up all kinds of fine white paper and take it off to Florence paper where we get recycled.

And when I think about it now, I mean, we were probably picking up all kinds of secret documents

walking in and out of these buildings, looking like very scruffy hippies. But anyway,  I moved from there into Toronto, where I, I quickly found myself fortunately hooking up with a group of folks who,  were very interested in, in waste management and recycling as well. And so,  we wound up. Field testing, what became the blue box?

So we worked in the beaches, handing out pails and talking to people about, would you be interested instead of driving to a recycling Depot to actually put your bottles and cans and newspapers in these little pails and, it went really well and it morphed into, you know, the blue box that we know today.

And so,  what that really taught me, like [00:02:00] was two things that taught me one that frankly it's people who lead leaders, because when he started that,  frankly, most sort of leader type people and engineers. We're of the opinion that you're never going to get people to frankly, deal with their garbage.

They just want to put it in a garbage bag and set it at the curb. You're not going to convince them to bother with this. Well, of course. They do bother with it, right? They want to be part of the solution. They could see the pile of garbage and the need for landfill and so on, and they wanted it to be part of the solution.

So  from that, I learned that frankly, don't underestimate the power of people. And I think government kind of tends to follow  what people say they want. So that was a really big. Lesson for me. And it was also a wonderful environment of collaboration and helping each other and working together in this little blue box organization called is five.

Right. And it was the opposite of bureaucratic.  We just all work collectively and [00:03:00] that frankly, Laid for me, the groundwork of how I've approached everything since then, I've been very fortunate to find myself working in those kinds of collaborative environments, which has been terrific.

Blake Melnick: And the blue box program was just incredibly innovative.  I remember when it came in and Toronto , I may be wrong here, but  it was my opinion that Toronto was the first major city to implement a blue box type program. Now thinking about it, it seems like I can't remember a time when it didn't exist.

So that's how much it's become part of everybody's day to day life living in Toronto. But you know, when you come to other places, even where I live at in BC,  the blue box program, is just starting so many years later than what you were involved with in Toronto. 

Toni Ellis: Hmm that's interesting.

Blake Melnick:  I think it was an amazing accomplishment. I mean,  it's something that,  is held up globally as an exemplar of what's possible around recycling and [00:04:00] making a positive impact on the environment.   

Toni Ellis: It's such a simple thing to right. Really an elegant, simple solution that was very graphic. You know, you can talk about landfills all you want, but then when people actually look at what's in their blue box and they go, wow, I actually generated all that. Well, am I ever glad I'm not putting it in the landfill?

Blake Melnick: Right. Right. Of course, of course. Yeah. It just makes yeah, so much sense.  And you're right. , I do recall when it first came in and people were thinking, Oh boy, now I have to carry all my trash out to the curb. And there's all these boxes. It's confusing. I think Toronto did it really, really well. As I say, out in BC where I live. It's a little bit more haphazard in a little bit more inconvenient. We don't have the large,  , bins now for specific,  waste products. Um, it's when there's a bunch of small little ones, which you can't really fit what you need into the boxes, but you know, it's at least starting, which I think is positive.

And as you. Correctly pointed out. It gets people thinking about the environment and [00:05:00] how they can do their part towards making it better. And I think that, yeah. 

Toni Ellis: Yep. Yep. And, you know, I think from that, it was always our hope that that would sort of morph into people, taking other.  Steps, you know, that that could be,  step one, but things like, okay, maybe I should start looking at composting now,  which, you know, has now become quite institutionalized with people getting, for example, green bins, if they don't want to bother with their own backyard composters

so we're really seeing a whole shift there, which is a really good thing. And frankly, long overdue

 it's become part of a mindset, which I think is important  people are always thinking about it. It's good. Yup. Yup. Yup. Exactly. 

So, so how does this lead us then into your involvement with tree trust?

Okay. Well, I have to tell you, it's just making me remember.  One of the things that we did,  back in the blue box days was we set up recycling programs for offices and we had these fiber [00:06:00] barrels. And we put  posters on the fiber barrels. And I can remember you saying, you're making me remember this and I forgot all about it using believers, not electroset to electroset these trees.

And they were Ash trees, as I think about them, silhouettes of Ash trees onto posters that went on these fiber barrels to help people make the connection between saving paper and saving trees. So I think that might've been the first time where I really started thinking about. Trees and in a more serious way.

 So was your question, how did I get into tree trusts? 

Blake Melnick: Yes.  You've obviously been a, an ecologist for many years and you've, explained the paper recycling and of course,  that's a product of the tree, but what was the impetus for,  starting tree trust?

Toni Ellis: Well, I, so I live in the beautiful village of a Elora, which is now part of a larger blended municipality,  it's got a heritage area which is full of beautiful, old majestic trees. And,  I run a program called Neighbourwoods on the [00:07:00] grand, which is all about. Helping people, plant trees, prune trees, steward trees, putting mulch on them and so on. And we inventory them. So we do a lot of different things related to trees, but in our work, I really started to take a critical look at the state of our big trees. And I realized that our big trees really were starting, are starting to struggle.

And I think that's a universal problem across the board, frankly.  For a number of reasons, you know, our big trees, particularly street trees.  Have all kinds of issues around road, salt, soil compaction.  And now we've got the Emerald Ashbore sweeping through, at least in Ontario. That's clearly taking out all of our Ash trees.

And then,  we've got the problem, which again, many urban areas are facing, starting to think politics, which is, you know, on one hand a great thing. But then as you intensify, then you start running out of places too. put trees.  And then,  developers take them out and if they don't take them out, sometimes they will [00:08:00] just completely ignore the root zone of the tree, which is large,  it's as large as what you see above ground.

And they don't really take that into consideration as they park their trucks under it, or,  put bricks down or drive over it. And frankly compact the soil to the point that the poor little roots don't have a hope. And, and of course, big trees have, unfortunately don't. Usually die right away when they've been faced with that kind of frankly, assault.

I mean, if they've been hit with an invasive species, like the Emerald Ash Bore, it'll take them a couple of years to die,  but most other trees you can kind of do frankly, bad things to a big tree and it'll take it a long time before you make the connection between what you've done. And,  a starting of a failure.

 So the thing that  I think about is the fact that,  our big, beautiful trees tend to kind of go along and you think, Oh yeah, that tree is looking pretty good. Let's face it. They don't come with what I think of as an engine warning light. Right. You don't know that they need help [00:09:00] until suddenly something bad happens to them.

Um, and so,  I think of our big trees frankly,  part of our green infrastructure, which I think probably many of your listeners will know there's gray infrastructure, which is roads and bridges and so on. And then the green infrastructure, which,  is very valuable to the overall health of the community.

And it's led by the trees.  The big trees are,  the foundation of green infrastructure. And so as a municipality thinks about. Or a homeowner thinks about, I better look at the roof or gee that the driveway needs repaving or,  my car needs maintenance.  We need to be seeing our trees in the same way too, that they  also need maintenance.

Blake Melnick: as Part of the ecosystem, the overall ecosystem of communities in which we live.

Toni Ellis:  Exactly. Exactly. So, and, and the other thing that's happened. So we started tree trust in 2019. And what's really interesting for me. That's [00:10:00] happened is a couple of things. One is when the pandemic hit, suddenly people are spending more time outside and I would say they're frankly, Enjoying our trees more they're they're looking at them and they're appreciating the difference between a park with no trees versus a park full of trees when they go for a walk.

And there's a lot of evidence now about forest bathing about the physiological changes that happen in a person when they spend 15 minutes in the woods, their blood pressure drops.  They feel better. There's definitely a lift in spirit. People sleep better. And in fact,  here's an interesting thing that I just read that there was a study done in 2015, which found that,  in Toronto, adding 10 more trees to a block was like the health equivalent of being seven years younger or adding $10,000 to your annual income.

So,  Tangible change for people [00:11:00] having trees on their property.  So one of the things that we found is that, , well, big trees are really important, , in new developments, particularly, uh, it's hard to put new trees in because the soil tends to be compacted and compromised, which means, okay, that's a problem right there.

So let's take care of the big trees we've got because there they are. They're cheerfully growing. They're obviously adapted to their environment.  They're suited to the environment and they withstood a whole bunch of whatever nature's thrown at them for the last hundred years, whether it's hurricane Hazel or droughts or snow or whatever they've managed to endure.

So let's give them a leg up and let's help them out. 

Blake Melnick: Right.  Tell us a little bit more about the organization itself. You mentioned when it was founded.  But tell us about  the initial vision  mission and mandate for tree trust. And then if you could  talk a little bit about  how tree trust operates as an entity.

Toni Ellis:  If I can back up [00:12:00] for a moment, tree trust is,  a branch. yuck yuck 

Blake Melnick: Okay. I get it.

Toni Ellis:  I've been an organization called the Alora environment center, which is a registered charity that was established.here inElora in 1993 and the Elora environment center has done a number of different things. And one of them is running this neighborwoods program that I mentioned.

And now as an offshoot also tree trust. So tree trust has been around for a couple of years, and frankly, in all honesty, our mission, our mission and vision really was simply to see if we could raise some money to hire qualified, highly skilled arborist to practice conservation of Boral culture on selected trees that they deemed, and we deemed worthy of rescuing.

 At the time, The model was founded on raising money, frankly, in all honesty from people who were doing a lot of flying because [00:13:00] in 2019, we are world cheerfully flying around. Right. And lots of people have to fly or want to fly because they want to go somewhere. But generally often feel a little bit concerned about the carbon footprint that comes out of flying.

So we made a connection, which is on our website today that says if you fly and you would like to make up for  the carbon from flying, here's an opportunity for you to make a donation. And there's a calculator that people can use, and we've been really careful Blake to not say this is any kind of certified program.

We did not go through any kind of rigorous,  certification process that some of the carbon offset programs use. We simply,  calculated what the cost of  carbon emissions from flying is,  from various trips, depending on where you're going, length of flying, and then based it on a $30, a kilo, time carbon generated.

So it's a pretty simple way to do it. [00:14:00] And again, it's really just, it was designed to give people an opportunity to see some of the big trees in our community.  Rescued. So that's kind of the beauty of the program, right? So I know some of the airlines, for example, have carbon offset programs, but the money goes, we don't know where we're not really sure what, whereas here we can say, okay, if you go down to mill street, you're going to see the tree that either we're going to work on, or we have worked on.

Or we'll invite you to come and watch the arborist at work. So it's kind of a really cool way to see your own charitable donations at work in your own home community. 

Blake Melnick:  I think that's super important because you know, the carbon offset tax they're a little bit of a guilt tax. People  say, well , I know I'm, shouldn't be doing this, but if  I pay a bit more money then I feel better about it, but I like what you're doing, because  it's tangible.  People can actually see.  Where their money is going  and  I'm assuming get involved as much or as little as they wish to in  whatever the project is if they find themselves particularly interested,  I'm [00:15:00] sure you're open to their, help and contribution. 

You bet. Absolutely.  . 

So I wanted to delve down into little, some more specific questions. , I had a chance to do some reading about tree trust  and about the benefits of old growth trees. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about the advantages of preserving old  growth trees versus planting new ones. 

Toni Ellis: Okay. So I want to just clarify something with you. Blake old growth trees to me means a tree that's never been chopped down and in B.C. You are lucky to have you have a lot of them still fortunately, here in Southern Ontario, we really honestly do not.

 Most of the trees that are in an urban setting, I would say almost all of the trees in an urban setting that are large were actually planted by somebody. Back in the day. , because it's interesting,  if you look at pictures, I was looking at a historic picture of, I think it was Palmerston in [00:16:00] Toronto and beautiful Victorian houses on the street, but not a tree to be seen.

And you look at it now. Beautiful shady street. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. Do you have yet? I'm pretty sure it was Palmerston. I can look it up,  but even I know here in our town, The trees are gone, right? Because they, people didn't want the trees. It was a nuisance, they were in their way. And so they got rid of them.

And then later tree planters got busy in our town. It was actually the birth of the horticultural society. One of the first things that they took on was getting some trees on the streetscape, going back into the late eighteen hundreds.  That's a long way of saying that.  Why are big trees important?

Blake Melnick:  I guess  I assumed old growth and big trees  were synonymous, but thank you for correcting that.  But that was my question.  What are the benefits of Preserving big trees versus planting new ones? . 

Toni Ellis:  Right. Okay. Well, so the big trees offer all kinds of habitat.

 Soil erosion control. They slow storm water.  There's studies that have shown that pavement on shady streets actually lasts [00:17:00] longer because it's not the pavement's not getting hammered by it because the trees are intercepting it. Yeah. And then,  how much oxygen the trees give off and how much shade they provide.

That's become a very big thing right now.  So some really good environmental benefits. And of course the The property value.  You never look at a real estate listing that doesn't mention if it's appropriate, you know, a nice treed lot, or,  surrounded by trees or whatever.

They really sell that as a selling property. And,  there is a really cool website called,  trees are good.com and on it as a tree benefit calculator and. It's a based in the States, but, you can go on it and pretend you live in Maine and you'll get more or less, a pretty good,  translation for  Southern Ontario.

And it,  you type in your species that you've got the size of the tree, if it's a park or where is the tree roughly speaking and it pops out with the actual annual ecological value of that tree.  From a stormwater point of view from the [00:18:00] aesthetics, from the cooling. So it's a pretty neat way to argue dollars and cents why this tree is,  valuable for those people  who want to see an economic argument to invest in their tree or not take down a tree.

 So those are  some of the things. And then I also think, you know, there's a spiritual component to being trees and a sense of history around big trees.   Maybe I'm a bit of an extremist here, but I just feel like when I'm looking at big tree, like I think  somebody planted that tree, you know, it didn't just particularly street trees. It didn't just land there  somebody actually planted that tree. And in fact, there's a great ,story about a woodcutter at one point, who told me that one time he was taking down a sugar maple and he was shocked to discover in the middle of the tree was an old iron steak that somebody had used to stake the tree way back when and the tree had grown around it.

But it really was a reminder that these trees were put in with thought and care. And,  as a gift to us, frankly, [00:19:00] 

Blake Melnick:  And there is a benefit to these larger trees  that far exceed the benefit of planting a new tree. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Toni Ellis: Oh, sure. Yeah, that's a good point. Everybody is now talking about planting little trees is the solution to carbon, our carbon woes. And it's true. The little trees are going to be great for sequestering carbon, but  kind of the answer is they will be great. Right, right. the big trees there's a calculator out there out of the States that can tell you how much carbon, any given tree is sequestering.

And so we've done a little calculation on the trees that we've got in our tree trust program right now. And the average is about 11 times or so of carbon is being stored in each of these. Big trees. And it's not just in the tree itself, it's in the branches and it's in the roots and it's in the soil around the trees. , so in addition to all of the ecological values, it's just a darn well carbon argument to save these trees. And there's a study out of the States that [00:20:00] has determined. That,  it takes about 270,  saplings to do the work of one big tree, which is not at all surprising when you  compare them.

 And then the other thing that  I know,  is  at least in our community, and I think this is probably not atypical is it's getting harder and harder, frankly, to find places to plant trees as we,  continue to densify and,  Build our communities out, the places that you can plant saplings is diminishing and add to that problem. If I can wax on about this for a minute, is that so much development now compromises the soil in such a serious way that it is really hard to get new trees growing.   If you put a little street tree in and you dig out the soil and you put the tree in the soil and you've got nice mulch and compost and so forth in the soil what's going to happen is the tree roots are never going to leave that little hole that you've built.

Right? So the trees roots will girdle around the tree until it eventually kills it.  The issue [00:21:00] around it, finding, the places where the soil is still okay. Or. Which we're doing right now, trying to work with your municipality to change the development guidelines so that the soil will be amenable to trees in the future  is an issue.

So again, it's about a tree that we've got now let's hang on to it if we can. 

Blake Melnick: So  what is the criteria you use to determine if an older tree is worth, saving or preserving? 

Toni Ellis: Right. That's a great question. So what we do is  We look for specifically, ideally,  a tree with social or historic or cultural significance.

 So that could be, and it could be the site or,  just something that's prominent on the landscape. Those would be our first choices,  and how we decide whether or not a tree is,  worth unquote investing donations into is largely the call of the arborists that we're working with. And they will look for things like  is this [00:22:00] tree healthy enough to withstand the kind of work I have to do in it, because often what they do is they take out a lot of the crown and they reduce the crown of the tree. So the tree doesn't have to work so hard to get stuff up and down. Yeah, exactly. Water nutrients. Exactly. So can this tree weather the kind of work that needs to be done to it?

And they look for things like, are there. Are there, fungus's on the side of the tree. And what kind of fungus is, are they, and are they bad or are they okay? , so it's  up to the arborist to decide if this tree is worth investing in, but we give them a list and say, okay, so here's some potential ones.

Can you take a look and let us know what you think? And,  , it's interesting almost any tree can be saved,  whether or not you're going to love the look of it at the end of the day or whether or not it's a good investment is,  It's another story. I've seen an old tree that. I shouldn't say that, actually let me back up there, there are trees that you would think are not worth saving and in fact [00:23:00] could be, but probably not under this program because we don't want to put donation dollars into a tree that's not going to really flourish. Right.  And be around for as long as possible. 

Blake Melnick: You mentioned the historical significance and  I find that very interesting because of course,  in certain communities there are going to be these huge trees I know where I am  we have a huge Chestnut tree,  very old,  as well as a,  a series of our Arbutis trees, which are protected in BC, you're not allowed to cut them down.  And those trees reflect the age of the neighborhood that dating back to the turn of the century and the houses there and to lose some of those trees would,  aesthetically change the,  the neighborhood significantly.

But I gather there must be people that say, boy,  This tree is so important to our community. , and there some historical references,  things that happened there or whoever planted the tree was  of some note,  that must be an interesting to  have those discussions. 

And I guess it's these stories that drive the decisions around what trees  the community would [00:24:00] like to preserve?  

Toni Ellis:   Yes, absolutely. And can I give you an example 

Blake Melnick: I'd love an example  ? 

Toni Ellis: Okay. So, our art center here in town used to be,  the Elora public school building and going back a hundred years or so, or more, actually there was a headmaster. there named, , David Boyle, who was a luminary in our community.

And he believed in getting girls to learn science and math, not just needlework and other .Arts of that nature. And he sent his students outside  into the caves at the time, the Elora caves to come back with  various first nations artifacts. He set up a museum at the school with some of these artifacts, and then people started sending him things like bits of coral and,  stuffed birds, like back in the day when museums were just kind of show pieces for specimens. Anyway, he  felt [00:25:00] tree planting was really important. And so he ranged the perimeter of the school with sugar Maples and Sarah, there is one that's still standing. And so that was one that we picked to take care of by tree trust, because I thought, gosh, this tree's got such history.

Right. He put his hands on that tree and put it to the ground and it's the last surviving remnants from him. 

Blake Melnick:  Well, that  leads me into my next question was there a project or a particular tree that you were,  invested in, in other words that you were passionate about preserving and do you have a story behind that? 

Toni Ellis: Well, I would say that David Boyle tree, because I was involved with frankly, rescuing that school house. So that is near and dear to my heart, but you know what, there's a tree behind my house,  and,  it's owned by a landlord who doesn't live there.

 There was some issues with that tree and he came over and this is a case where not all arborists are the same. His arborist said, I'll take that tree down. It's not worth it. [00:26:00] And it's probably, I don't know, 150, 160 year old sugar, maple. And it's really important to me. So I wound up contributing some money so that tree trusts could save that particular tree.

And I of course benefit from that tree. So that's why I paid for a good chunk of taking care of it.  But that was really important to me because  it could have gone either way and  some of these big trees really need an advocate. Who's going to stand up and say, No, we, we let's look at this from a different way.

And  I knowin BC, you guys have certainly had lots and lots of people standing up and saying, don't take down this old growth tree. Right. And I feel like it's a bit of the same thing here. Like let's save this tree if we can. But the good news is I think.  The nice thing about tree trust is it is a positive story and  people do see an opportunity if they love a tree to make a case and let see if we can't do something for them on that tree. 

Blake Melnick:  You  mentioned something that's important. Trees are personal and I think we all have memories of our favorite tree. I know, as a boy, I [00:27:00] can. Pretty much remember every tree I climbed and  there is a personal attachment that develops towards trees, which I think is actually quite fascinating.  And I loved your earlier point, during the current pandemic trees are becoming more important just being able to walk around outside, which seems to be the most common activity for most people is long walks. to save their sanity and get out into nature. And I think you're right there's a greater appreciation for trees.  As a result, 

I wanted to talk a little bit about planning , city planning  in relation  to trees. Now, do you,  do any work with planners that are planning communities  to  decide what types of trees should be?

 Not just planted new ones, of course, but the existing ones, how to actually develop around some of these old trees that maintain the tree, of course, but also add to the distinct beauty of that particular area. Do any work with urban planners

 we don't, [00:28:00] although that's a very cool idea. , most municipalities now I would say.  Have, an urban forest department or a staff person on the working for the municipality who, who wears that hat. So we have not actually done that.  But we will certainly come in and try to plant some trees once the development has gone through. Can I back up for two seconds?

You said a minute ago, about how people have a story. One of the things that tree trust has done is when the pandemic hit and suddenly their planes stopped flying. We were looking at a significant drop, in revenue and  sort of, how does the program work  now? And we thought about tree stories to your exact point, that people have a story about a tree often they do.

And so we appeal to them to submit stories about a tree that they [00:29:00] love and think about making a donation simply because they want to see a big tree saved and that's actually been pretty powerful messaging. And in addition to that, we've added a couple other things like you can  donate to help offset your cost of driving or.

Toni Ellis: Heating your home. , but frankly, I think right now, and possibly it's because of the pandemic that people are donating, just because cripes, they want to see a tree in their community saved.  

Blake Melnick: You're probably right about that, but I love that idea about the stories, I think,  that's what speaks to people when you hear those stories , when you read about somebody's experience and again with trees are so interesting,  I can think of trees that,  we've tied big rope swings around and swung out over the water and I could. Pretty much tell you where they all are.  Even many years later. So I love that idea of the stories. I think that's a really good way to get your message across . 

Toni Ellis:  Thank you.

Blake Melnick:   You've said you don't really do a lot of work with urban planners around trees, but from your perspective, and you've been doing this for a long [00:30:00] time. What are some of the ways that city designs can be more friendly towards older trees?

Do you have some ideas around that example, the Silva cells, the proper tree care, et cetera. What are your thoughts? 

Toni Ellis: Well,  for one thing, if it's an old existing tree, then it honestly has to be,  accounted for in all development planning with adequate,  Tree protection zones around the base of the tree to protect the roots for any existing tree. And that needs to be really taken seriously , there was a tree on our main street and it had been, it had a little snow fencing around it as a tree protection zone, which had cheerfully been removed and everything was leaning right up against  , the trunk of the tree. So, and that's in part our problem, because right now we don't have  fines for, we don't have a bylaw frankly, to protect our trees, but we're working on that.  Anyway, protecting adequately suitably protecting existing trees needs to be definitely accounted for. And  you do see developments right? Where there are some [00:31:00] big trees remaining and Oh my gosh, what an improvement it makes to the landscape.

And as we are learning more and more, now that if you've got a big  existing tree in place. Then little trees that are in its orbit for lack of a better word near its drip line will mightily benefit from the micro  activity that happens underground where  the big trees send out fungus that helps inoculate the new trees and support the new saplings getting started.

So,  Big trees really helped the little trees get going. So when you can hang onto some of those big trees, it'll really make a difference to new developments. 

Blake Melnick: And it just makes that new development look so much better. You know,  what it's like when you see a new development, it, you look at it and you go, boy,  in 10 years, this is going to be really nice.

But if it had some existing,  old trees already there and the new development,  accommodated those old growth trees,  it makes it makes the community itself or more is theoretically appealing.

Toni Ellis:  [00:32:00] Absolutely. 

Blake Melnick:  So you mentioned something and I want to pick up on this  some sort of law to protect trees.

And you said that there isn't something like that in place now, but when tree trust gets involved in saving a mature tree,  does that tree then become officially designated as protected going forward?  You spend all this time and money and you've got donations coming in and you've figured out a way to preserve this beautiful old Oak tree, for example.

And it does it after all that's happened.  Is it protected in any kind of way or two years down the road? Can somebody just go along and say, well, I think we're going to cut this tree down. 

Well, that is an excellent question. So  here's  the long answer to that,  there are municipalities that have tree protection in place regulations in place, usually around the size of a tree.

So if it's more than say, 30 centimeters in diameter, that tree is automatically protected by a bylaw.  Some [00:33:00] municipalities are protecting specific individual trees because they are significant. So for example, we haven't tackled this yet, but we should , request to our council that we put in place some specific provisions for any trees that have been treated by tree trust, because as you said, they've had a significant investment and then we should be hanging onto them.

And frankly, they were deemed to be worth saving. So we should be doing that.  And it's very interesting, really how even heritage trees, we have a program here in Ontario called down here a heritage tree program. And even those trees that are deemed to be really significant, , provincially, significant trees are only protected in the city of Toronto by a bylaw amendment in that city.

Nowhere else is there legal protection for those trees? It's up to each municipality. The deem  that tree is worth protecting. And so advocate, local advocates can, as I said earlier, can suggest, could we please protect that specific tree?  [00:34:00] I'll add that to my to-do list. Okay, Blake

it's a great point. So  it does require,  a fair bit of effort by individuals to really,  ensure these trees are protected. And I'm surprised, , I would've thought there would have been, you did mention that. Based on size, some of them are automatically protected, but I always thought there was more regulation involved.

It always seemed to me that,   you couldn't just go cut down your tree, even if it was on your property,  you had to file for permission to the city to do it. So I always thought it was a fairly regulated process. 

Toni Ellis: Yeah, well, and you know what, it's easy for a developer. To go in and just take the tree out and pay the fine if there is a fine and which the fine is never going to replace that tree, 

 but again, we're really trying to emphasize the positive nature of tree trust. We don't want to get into, frankly.  bun fights with developers, 

we to maintain the positive nature. And, Oh, the other thing is, can I just talk about how we've expanded the program? 

I'd love to hear about that. 

Okay, [00:35:00] good. So because the program turned out to be so successful here to my surprise and delight.  We now have four other communities who have a job to the tree trust and recalling.

Calling them community partners, but in effect really what they are as franchisees, for lack of a better description that people would understand. And so specific communities have adopted the model. And the beauty of it is that they get to  run it as they want.  They obviously take advantage of our branding and  we channeled our charitable donations so we get, given to their community , but they decide which trees they want to work on. They decide do they want to do public trees or private trees or both? So they set their own agendas and how active they want to be.   So for example, in the town of blue mountains, they are very active.

And in fact, they are now using tree trust as a springboard to start an Arboretum and a tree nursery, which will for one thing, grow some of the trees that are coming off of [00:36:00] the two sugar Maples that they've already done through tree trust. So that's super cool. So each community, , kind of decides  how much they want to do.

But one of the things that we're starting to look at here, Blake going forward is starting to help people make a connection between the beautiful tree that you've taken care of and its role in carbon and how this can be  a first step in starting to take a look at your own carbon situation. So if you've helped out a big tree, Maybe you'll come to the launch and maybe it'll go home with a tree that you will plant and nurture and take care of.

And then maybe start looking at some other things that you could be doing around reducing your own carbon load. So.  We're starting to look at that too. There's there's no end of opportunities at tree trust it's great. Because from what I've been reading, these large trees are really nature's solution to climate change

Blake Melnick:  The natural,  ability , to sequester carbon  [00:37:00] in large amounts,  I think that's really important. And I, and I like the idea that work, the tree trust does  is very much focused at the community level.

I'm glad that you stay away from the politics, and really focus on that community level bringing people that are, interested or passionate about the environment and trees together.  

And through tree trust, they learn about the benefits of large trees in a variety of different ways. And I think that's fantastic. It's almost like a chain letter. you get the word out and people,  one group saves one tree and another group says, Hey, that's fantastic. We have a tree that we really interested in preserving. The learning goes on I think that's a really great approach.

Toni Ellis:  And to that point, one of the things that we're going to be doing this year is. We're going to get some signs out. So each tree trust tree, whether it's in Stratford or Elora, or town of blue mountains or wherever, will have a little sign on it, which will have our branding. And , it'll say this tree was cared for thanks to donations made, and will be be a QR code that people can use to find out a little bit more about the [00:38:00] program and about that particular tree.

So, my big world dream is that people will. At least in Southern Ontario anyway, potentially there might even be a map. It'll be like a scavenger hunt, find a tree trust tree. See if you can find one in a Elora, we've got two.

Blake Melnick: That'd be interesting. 

Toni Ellis: Yeah. 

Blake Melnick:  We're  approaching  the end of this episode. You've provided a nice segue into  my final questions  and that's specifically, about , how people can get involved with tree trust, first of all, where can they go to find out more?

Thank you. Yes. So we do have a pretty great website.  It's called tree trust.ca and,  I would encourage people to hop on there. It's fairly straightforward and easy to navigate. As I said, there are five communities in the program now. We're calling Stratford Wellington, one of our community partners. And what I'm running is that headquarters I'm in charge of HQ, which is  providing the overall administrative support for the [00:39:00] program and facilitating information exchange and so on. If people,  hop on there and they think this looks like something, their community might be involved in, perhaps there's an existing organization.

Toni Ellis: there like, horicultutral society  or a green organization, or maybe you're just want to start with something yourself. Great. We'd be  happy to talk to you about what's possible there.  And in terms of time commitment.  I think that's really a question of how much time do you want to put into it?

Stratford, I know has got limited time because the three or four folks that are organizing it are all busy doing other things. So that's why they're limiting  how many trees they want to do this year. Although they are expanding to include some educational stuff, which is kind of awesome.

And,  tree trust in town of blue mountains is doing a whole lot of other stuff too.  So it's really driven by time availability and also  resources that you've got to put into it. Right. 

Blake Melnick: And I'm assuming you're open to people that want to volunteer and do some work with tree trust.

Toni Ellis: Absolutely. For sure help us find some other [00:40:00] trees help us spread the word. Yeah, for sure.

Blake Melnick:  Great, 

Toni Ellis: this is a very community-based program. 

Blake Melnick: That's what I love about what you've said today. I really like that community focus. It seems,  manageable for people. And I love this whole idea  of trees  it's  almost like a beginning they represent growth. They  represent something new and something beautiful that will flourish and last for a long time. I guess that's why we love trees. I mean, they really do represent rejuvenation, growth, endurance and, particularly coming out of this pandemic, I think this is something that people want  they can participate in something that will endure. Overtime. 

Toni Ellis:  Like there is something we can do, right? 

Yes just about melting icebergs and hungry polar bears. It's about something that we can all do. And,  the other thing that maybe I can just mention to you now, Blake, is that in addition to tree trust, we really encourage people who. A wanting to plant a tree.

Excellent. Make sure you're planting the right tree in the right place.  B [00:41:00] plant as largest stature tree as you can, because they offer way more environmental benefits over time and C if you've got a big, beautiful majestic tree on your property. Please consider taking care of it just the way you would, your roof or your foundation or your driveway.

Get a qualified arborist to go in and take a look  don't wait for it to lose a big limb or  show other signs of failure. But  consider actually providing maintenance to that tree. , you phone an arborist, you might say, Oh no, it's fine. It's fine. Don't worry about it or they might say, you know what, let's do a little bit of work on this tree.  It'll help it out right now. 

Blake Melnick: You've triggered  another question for me.  When you decide to plant, you should pick a larger tree, how large a tree can you actually plant ? That will survive 

 I'm so glad you mentioned that because I use that word and I think people, it's not clear when I say a large stature tree. What I mean by that is the tree eventually should be a bigger tree.  I see so many on our streets in particular, these [00:42:00] a little fruit trees

Toni Ellis: theyre never going to amount versus an Oak or a maple, that'll do all kinds of things for us. So that's what I mean by plant the largest stature tree. But,  it's really interesting cause I had this discussion with our municipality here. They like to plant the trees that are caliper trees that are bigger. They come in balls burlap. Balls and I find frankly, from my way of thinking, oftentimes the smaller tree that comes in maybe a five gallon pot or a 10 gallon pot even actually takes the hole really fast because they just climatize more quickly to their environment. And so in three or four years, they will likely be the same size of the bigger tree.

Now you of course a spade in a tree, which is a very big undertaking,  you'll get an instant tree. But I often think about  when my kids were little and I was thinking, some people get their kids out on skates when they're three and other people get their kids out on skates when they're six.

And by the time they're eight, they're at skating at the same skill level.

Blake Melnick:  That's true. [00:43:00] Good point. Good analogy. As a final word, and I think you've touched on it a little bit early on, but are there any,  new initiatives on the immediate horizon for tree trust? 

Toni Ellis:  Expanding to new communities who are interested in bringing it to their community and looking at how we can,  frankly use the big trees as an on  ramp, other.

Climate change programming the municipal level whatever that it looks like. 

Blake Melnick: Great. And just for our audience sake, just like we do in all our other episodes. We will have a blog post up about Tony and about tree trust. So you'll be able to go and visit that and find out more information. Do you have any objections to people reaching out to you directly? Can I include your contact information on  the blog  as well? 

Toni Ellis: Please do that would be wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much, Blake. I really appreciate your interest in this topic and your excellent questions and giving me an opportunity [00:44:00] to wave a flag for both tree trust and for our big trees  that are something we should be taken care of. 

Blake Melnick: Well, my pleasure. And it was really great having you on the show and I've learned a lot and I hope other people will do their own investigations,  into the benefits of preserving large trees. And in planting large stature trees in the future.