Conservation Sudbury takes part in 50 Million Tree program

Morning North7:41Sudbury getting in on Ontario's 50 million tree plan

50 million trees... That's the province's goal... Plant 50 million trees by 2025 and now Sudbury is getting in on the action. Carl Jorgensen and Hajnal Kovacs of Conservation Sudbury joined us in studio with some details about the plan.

Sudbury is joining a program that aims to see millions of trees planted over the next decade.

Conservation Sudbury spokesperson Carl Jorgensen said the group has signed up with Trees Ontario's 50 Million Tree Program, and will provide white pine seedlings.

What needs to happen now is for people with more than 1 hectare of land, and who want to reforest, to apply.

Jorgensen said the trees will be grown at Collge Boraland will cost people less than twenty cents each.

"They would not be able to get them for the price we are able to provide them at," he said.

"And our price includes planting and assessment of the land by a professional forester and then follow-up visits."

Sudbury is the first northern community to join the program, which aims to plant 50 million trees by the year 2025.

There's a pent-up demand for trees that hasn't been answered until now, Jorgensen said. Reforesting areas "like a former airstrip or a landing area or an old golf course or an old farm or something that's no longer used for the purpose," are some examples of areas suitable for reforestation.

"It doesn't really have a thriving forest on it, and so there are landowners out there who would love to have a forest back on the land again," he said.

Landowner and site requirements

• Have a productive area at least one hectare in size; smaller areas may be considered depending on the landscape context
• Ensure land is open or mostly open and has not been a woodland as defined by the Forestry Actsince Dec.31, 1989
• Sign a 15-year management agreement to maintain the trees
• Employ good forestry practices
• May have to assume some of the additional costs for trees, to implement the plan and to maintain the trees

- Source: Trees Ontario