James Bay Neighbourhood Workshops and cohort launch – April 2025
Zero Waste Event and The Dish Library Launch – March 1, 2025
Received CRD Rethink Waste Grant – February 2025
Group Viewing “Global Landscape for Climate Action in 2025” – January 16, 2025
Gift totes shared with new downtown neighbours – Holidays 2024-2025
Participating at Synergy Foundation’s “Small Business, Big Impact: A Climate Action Knowledge Exchange” – November 2024
Boulevard Climate Garden Workshop – October 19, 2025
Our Table at the Event at the Leg: Later is too Late – October 1, 2024
Letter and Petition to Mayor and Council – Fall 2024
Throughout the late summer and early fall, we drafted a petition, collected signatures, and discussed the “Mighty Sequoia” in Centennial Square. The petition and letter were sent to Mayor and Council. We received one response, thank you Councillor Hammond!
AN INCONVENIENT TR[EE]?
On Jul 11, 2024 Victoria’s mayor and a majority of council members approved the updated concept design for Centennial Square and directed staff to proceed with implementation as outlined in the Centennial Square Revitalization Project Concept
Design Report. (https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/Players/ISIStandAlonePlayer.aspx? Id=386fd51a-15e8-4c75-afd9-a31191954313, minute 3.50) That is a death sentence for the mighty sequoia, healthy sweetgum, and beautiful Shirofugen Japanese flowering cherry, which was gifted to Victoria by Morioka, Japan, to celebrate the cities’ twinning in May 1985. (https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/ FileStream.ashx?DocumentId=98060, page 13).
The city and some electeds have mentioned a number of reasons for this decision. We find none of these reasons to be insurmountable, . And some are not publicly available – such as the “detailed technical assessment of each” living tree. (Ibid., page 15)
As the city has declared, we are in a Climate Emergency. The sequoia is living proof of the resiliency we will all need from now on. It is incontrovertible that we depend on trees for our survival, that we need more trees downtown, and that they help mitigate and adapt to climate change. In downtown and Harris Green neighbourhoods, the space available to plant anything declined by 15% and 21% respectively between 2013-2019. (City of Victoria, Vegetation Canopy Change Detection Analysis, 2013-2019, Phase 02 Project) In the past two years Harris Green is losing or has lost to development numerous mature trees on Yates, Cook, and Meares, to name a few.
In regards to the inconvenient sequoia:
“That a previous generation planted that tree in that place is a gift to us all. The trees that are most appreciated by the community are almost never the ones that were perfectly placed, perfectly formed, or perfectly considerate of all other infrastructure and social uses around
Those trees that capture the public’s appreciation are almost always norm-benders… You cannot recreate or engineer the social and ecological and historic textures of a tree that captures the public imagination like this one.” (Ryan Senechal, Sessional Lecturer at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry; practicing consulting arborist/urban forester) them.
We demand that the City of Victoria explore every alternative to cutting these trees down. From the information publicly available, this has not been done.
Respectfully,
Received City of Victoria “My Great Neighbourhood Grant” – Fall 2024
