Arborblitz

Poems from the Tree Cabaret (doc)

Tree lovers were in their element at the Bioblitz Project’s Tree Cabaret held in the Garry Oak Room on January 27th. We surrounded ourselves with paintings and photos of trees, including some painted and hand-crafted by the FCA’s Out of School groups. Our “Bio-Poet Laureate” Elizabeth Woods started off a series of poetry readings, and music was provided by The Green Onions as well as by John Taylor, who composed new songs, “Hummingbird” (Under My Tulip Tree), and “Cedar Tree”, especially for the occasion.

It wasn’t all celebration however; we also learned a lot about the tree companions with whom we share this city from City Arborist Dan Marzocco and Integrated Pest Management Biologist Michelle Gorman. These are two of the professionals who oversee our tree population and strive to keep it healthy. They informed us that Victoria contains 18,000 boulevard trees, valued at $39 million – and that’s excluding trees in parks. In a lively question-and-answer session they told us that Victoria’s tree population is aging and described how it is monitored and trees replaced as necessary, with the funding available and in the climate change conditions which their work daily shows the world is undergoing.

The Bioblitz Project has launched an “Arborblitz” which will create a citizen-generated map of “significant trees” in Fairfield, Rockland and Gonzales. Significance may come from an ecological, aesthetic or historical perspective and people are invited to add the locations of trees significant to them personally. The map can be seen and added to at the Place during regular office hours over the next four months.

Mapping well-loved trees is a way of bringing them to the attention of others, of thinking about what trees do for us (provide oxygen, absorb CO2, cool the streets, harbour birds and symbiotic plants, provide visual beauty), and of exercising some protective guardianship over them in the face of threats from development, water shortage, pollution and climate change.

For more information on the Arborblitz and future Bioblitz Project “cafes”, call Barbara Julian at 592 9340.