Canada’s Plan to Plant Two Billion Trees by 2030 is Ahead of Schedule

The Canadian Press reported on Wednesday (8-2-23) that Canada’s Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said the federal government’s ambitious plan to plant two billion trees by 2030 is ahead of schedule, but mitigating the effects of climate change is as important as adapting to them.

“We are focusing a good chunk of this program increasingly on the reforestation of area burned by forests, but as I say, the challenge of climate change, we’ve talked a lot about the need for us to reduce carbon emissions to actually ensure that we’re not making the problem worse,” Wilkinson told The Canadian Press. “The reality is that we are going to actually have to focus far more on adaptation.”

Wilkinson said in the first two years of the federal government’s tree-planting pledge, 110 million trees have been planted, exceeding early targets of 90 million trees during that period. “Planting two billion trees is a marathon, it is not a sprint. Thoughtful planning is required to ensure that the right trees are planted in the right place at the right time.”

But the minster noted that in an age of record wildfires and devastating floods, tree planting is an important step in mitigating climate change-related disasters.