Location: Belfast, Northern Ireland
The Belfast One Million Trees project was launched in 2020 with the target of planting 1 million trees by 2035.
In 2021, Belfast City Council worked with Treeconomics to undertake an Urban Forest Asset Valuation, to better understand the city’s existing tree stock.
Belfast City Council then commissioned a Tree Strategy Report. This represents another critical step in attaining the city’s target of 1 million trees by 2035.
A vision for Belfast
The Tree Strategy aims to enable the vision whereby “Belfast is a city which focuses on protecting, enhancing and expanding its woodlands, hedges, and trees, connecting people to nature, and ensuring that these continue to be a major asset to everyone who lives in, works in, and visits our city”. It incorporates targets for assessing and improving the current urban forest structure, the community framework, and the management of resources in a constructive and sustainable manner.
Workshops
Stakeholder workshops were a crucial part of target setting. Groups such as Belfast City Council, Ulster Wildlife and Northern Ireland Environment Link contributed their expertise and feedback during structured workshop sessions. Collaboratively, the direction of the Belfast Tree Strategy evolved, and a framework was created which will be essential for the successful attainment of the One Million Trees target.
The Belfast Tree Strategy is an encouraging step in the right direction to provide a structured management process for the maintenance of our tree population in the city.
The Action Plan
The Belfast Tree Strategy centres on an Action Plan, which was devised during a course of workshops. This Action Plan provides key performance indicators, and assesses the current attainment and priority levels for each.
Moving forward
The strategy lays out actions and targets for the next 10 years, some of which are already underway. A Tree Establishment Strategy has been created to identify potential planting locations in soft and hard landscapes, and to address species selection, climate resilience, and early management strategies.
To view the Belfast i-Tree Eco Report and the Belfast Tree Strategy Report, please visit: www.treeconomics.co.uk/resources/reports
Belfast’s Tree Establishment Strategy
A series of maps and graphs comprise the Belfast Tree Establishment Strategy. The study identifies available sites for tree planting within Belfast at both city-wide and by-ward scales. In total, 7.2 million trees could be planted.
Critically, two final tree establishment maps are overlayed with a bespoke planting priority dataset (a ‘hotspot map’). High-priority sites are quantified using data on air quality, surface water flooding, the Index of Multiple Deprivation, and other metrics. Using these hotspot maps, Belfast can adopt a rigorous tree establishment strategy over the next decade. Belfast City Council can prioritise tree establishment in sites where it will yield the most wellbeing and amenity benefits, where trees will have the greatest impact on reducing flooding, and where percentage tree canopy cover is currently the smallest. Within the highest priority areas, 160,000 new trees can be planted.
Our Urban Forest Asset Valuation, Tree Strategy and Tree Establishment Strategy reports will allow Belfast City Council to transform its urban forest into one which greatly serves the citizens of Belfast.
Download the report here.
Treeconomics is the go-to organisation for the valuing of trees in towns and cities. We specialise in all aspects of urban forest management and offer a range of services, from canopy cover assessments through to comprehensive management plans.
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