In accordance with the Cabinet Directive on Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessment, this public statement of environmental and economic effects has been prepared for a contribution agreement over $100M under the 2 Billion Trees program with Quebec’s Ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts.
Summary
The agreement will support the planting of more than 100 million trees in the province and contribute to numerous co-benefits, including:
- reforesting areas affected by natural disasters, particularly forest fires
- planting trees on unproductive sites such as wastelands and sand pits
- ensuring the sustainability of seedling production in the context of climate change
The Fall Economic Statement in December 2020 announced a Natural Climate Solutions Fund horizontal initiative, which includes Natural Resources Canada’s 2 Billion Trees program. Through this program, the Government of Canada is working with diverse partners across the country to plant an additional 2 billion trees over 10 years as part of a broader approach to nature-based climate solutions. Forests and trees absorb and store greenhouse gases, support biodiversity, regulate water levels, protect shorelines from storm surges and erosion, and even cool cities.
The Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessment found that the overall environmental impacts of the 2 Billion Trees agreement are likely to be net positive.
Strategic environmental analysis
The Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessment determined that this project would have net positive effects on greenhouse gases, biodiversity, environmental effects, climate change adaptation and resilience. By reforesting areas impacted by spruce budworm and forest fires, and afforesting unproductive sites such as wastelands and sand pits, these trees will absorb and store greenhouse gases through the photosynthetic process. As the forests mature, they will lead to other environmental co-benefits, such as decreasing forest fragmentation, which may benefit forest species, possibly including species at risk and migratory birds. Forests also help stabilize soil which has important benefits for water filtration and reducing runoff and flooding.
Trees planted in Quebec, like much of Canada, are vulnerable to climate change impacts such as wildfires, which have become more frequent and intense in recent years. This project under the 2 Billion Trees program will support the planting of millions of trees, which will help communities to expand and diversify their forests, building greater resiliency to climate change. It will provide nature-based climate solutions by sequestering carbon, contributing to habitat restoration (including species at risk) and providing social, cultural, environmental, and economic benefits to residents of Quebec. Through this project, a vast reforestation effort will take place to reforest hundreds of thousands of hectares burned by forest fires.
NRCan has effective mitigation actions that lower risk levels to medium or low when assessing projects for funding (for example, emphasizing multi-year agreements for at least 3-5 years to allow partners to attract and keep staff and scale-up seedling production), as well as monitoring their progress and compliance in accordance with funding agreements.
Further, the 2 Billion Trees program reports on a set of indicators (such as the number of trees and hectares planted, greenhouse gas reductions estimated on a per year basis) to ensure that the environmental effects are measurable, and the program’s performance is transparent to Canadians.
Federal Sustainable Development Strategy considerations
This federal action directly supports the following 2022 to 2026 Federal Sustainable Development Strategy goal:
- Goal 13: Take action on climate change and its impacts by planting trees that capture and store carbon from the atmosphere and reforesting areas affected by natural disasters, including spruce budworm and forest fires
In accordance with guidance under the Cabinet Directive on Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessment, this proposal’s Strategic Environmental and Economic Assessment did not include a strategic economic analysis due to the nature and scope of the proposal.