Urban Forest Strategy | City of Burnaby

We’re developing plans to protect, enhance and expand Burnaby’s urban forest to benefit all residents

Burnaby is taking action to protect and expand our urban forest, which is composed of all the trees and vegetation in the city, including trees in our parks, on our boulevards, and on privately owned land.

Our urban forest faces significant challenges from climate change, growing population and development, invasive species, diseases and other factors.

Burnaby's Urban Forest Strategy is being developed to build on our city’s strong foundation for an even better, greener future. The strategy will be a roadmap for creating a diverse, resilient and healthy urban forest by protecting, preserving, restoring and expanding tree cover throughout the city. It will outline a clear, long-term, sustainable approach to managing our urban forest for generations to come.

Our urban forest provides us with important environmental, social, health and economic benefits. It improves air quality, cools the local climate, beautifies our surroundings, provides wildlife habitat, reduces storm water runoff through the absorption of rainwater, improves our health and well-being, and reduces energy costs.

A healthy urban forest will also help Burnaby become carbon-neutral by 2050, a goal outlined in our Climate Action Plan.

The Urban Forest Strategy aims to:

protect, preserve, enhance and expand Burnaby's urban forest, on public and private land
maximize the urban forest's environmental, social, health and economic benefits by improving its health and resilience
build and sustain solid community-wide support for the urban forest.
identify areas with comparatively fewer trees for tree planting and green infrastructure initiatives
expand Burnaby’s canopy cover from 32% (as of 2022) to the Metro Vancouver regional goal of 40%

Actions completed:

published State of Urban Forest Report
assessed canopy cover across the city, across different land uses
conducted an inventory of the health and well-being of Burnaby’s 32,000+ boulevard trees
completed an assessment the ecosystem services Burnaby’s urban forest provides, which estimates a service value of over $8,00,000 annually in benefits
held 2 rounds of public engagement on the urban forest, including public surveys and a series of community workshops and community open house events
published a What We Heard Report describing our findings from our first round of public engagement
incorporate the feedback we received into a Draft Urban Forest Strategy

Next steps

finalize the Urban Forest Strategy
provide residents with tools and resources to protect the urban forest in their neighbourhoods and encourage tree-planting on private land

Learn more about Climate Action