FAQs

An "urban forest" simply describes both municipally owned and privately-owned trees within an urban context. Urban in this context just refers to a town, as opposed to the countryside. The trees in our urban center are a natural asset that hold economic value and provide many benefits to us as individuals and to the municipality.  

An Urban Forest Management Plan (UFMP) is a strategic document that acts as a roadmap for a community to protect, maintain, and grow its urban forest to maximize long-term environmental, social, and health benefits. It typically includes an inventory of the existing trees, a long-term vision and specific goals, an implementation strategy with assigned responsibilities, and a monitoring plan to ensure effectiveness.  By providing data-driven analysis and clear objectives, UFMPs help justify budgets, guide planting and maintenance efforts, integrate trees into urban planning, and build community resilience against challenges like climate change.   

There are many benefits to having an UFMP!  Mahone Bay wants to make sure its streets, parks and trails look green and beautiful, while also cleaning the air, providing shade, improving our mood and attention, and more!  Trees help communities adapt to the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events – they absorb excess water, reduce wind impact, and act as snow fences in the winter.  They mitigate climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere- In one year a tree can absorb a ½ metric ton of carbon dioxide, equivalent to driving a car around 4,000 km.  Mahone Bay can benefit from an UFMP by integrating trees into our communities through building and development processes, municipal plans and infrastructure projects to ensure trees are a lasting part of the community landscape. 

Staff have been working on urban forest related topics for a number of years.  In 2023, the Town hosted public engagement meetings that brought residents together to talk about trees in Mahone Bay (May and August 2023).  Tree identification events and walks also took place in 2023, helping to improve the public Mahone Bay Tree Map.  Currently, staff are working on the 1st draft of the Urban Forest Management Plan (2025). 

A tree inventory is a detailed record of the location, species, size, and condition of trees within a defined geographic area, in this case, the boundaries of Mahone Bay. It is a tool for effective urban forest management, providing data needed to prioritize maintenance, manage risks, plan for future plantings, and justify budgets. The data collected informs decisions about tree health, species diversity, and potential hazards, enabling better management of the urban tree canopy. 

Urban Roots will be completing a tree inventory for the Town. This process was started back in the Summer of 2022, by a GIS co-op student, who captured the location of the majority of our street trees. The process is being continued and completed by an arborist, who is able to assess the health of each tree. 

Sometimes a tree may look healthy from street view but isn’t – and poses a risk to infrastructure, buildings, property or residents. Alternatively, someone may think that a tree is declining or needs to come down, but the tree is actually healthy. 

If the tree is within the right of way of a Town owned street, then it is a Town owned tree. If has been planted outside of this area, but it's branches hang over into the right of way, or it has the potential to fall/fail into the right of way, then the Town may intervene as well. 

The Town has contracted a company, Urban Roots, for several services, including the assessment of all street trees by their arborists. The Town has been divided into sections, see below, and each Spring, one sector will be assessed, for the tree work that is needed in that area. Then, a tender will go out, asking for bids from qualified companies, to do this tree trimming, pruning, and removal work. This will continue until each sector has had tree work done, and then the cycle will repeat.