A policy of “no net loss” has been adopted for the protection of trees in Prince Edward County.
At Tuesday’s Prince Edward County Council meeting new policy was passed to preserve trees by planting as many or more than are removed.
There was discussion early about changing the wording to “net positive” instead. Councillor Kate MacNaughton endorsed the change.
“So I think that the language of net positive becomes quite important because if you’re talking about no losses versus net benefits, it forces you to have to at least go plus-one.”
Other councillors expressed that they felt the policy was fine as presented and suggested the uncertainty of whether or not it would change the $20,000 allotted to tree planting in the budget as a reason to leave it as is. After more discussion, a recorded vote on changing the wording in the policy failed by a count of 11 to three.
Shortly after, the original unchanged policy was passed.
Along with no net loss, an inventory of trees planted on municipally owned land will also be adopted as well as the addition of a 75% native species planting policy for new trees. The county is currently preparing to hire an environmental technician to help implement the new policy and is expected to begin the search soon.
