The federal government is two years and just 29 million trees away from its campaign promise to plant two billion trees by 2030, falling short of the target it set last year. During the 2019 campaign, the Liberals pledged to plant two billion trees this decade, but so far they are almost 1.5% short of the final target, which they attribute to the years it takes to grow saplings that can then be are planted. Still, Natural Resources Canada says the government is on track, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised the project at a tree-planting event in Sudbury on Thursday. Trudeau was joined by Environment and Climate Change Minister Stephen Guilbeau and anthropologist and primatologist Jane Goodall to celebrate the area’s revitalization efforts and plant the city’s 10 millionth tree. The prime minister called projects like the one in Sudbury “an integral part” of how the government can achieve its tree-planting goal. Spread over the 10-year commitment, the government will need to plant an additional 200 million trees per year on top of current tallies. That’s nearly 548,000 trees per day, however, tree planting is a seasonal effort and cannot be done year-round, rather than being done during four to five months of the year. Natural Resources Canada planned to put 30 million seedlings in the ground last year, working with organizations and projects that have been vetted by a panel of experts. Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson called the 2021 planting season “a success” in a statement released last month. “We have achieved 97 percent of our planting goal and are on track to plant two billion trees over 10 years,” he wrote. Wilkinson said the government now plans to sign long-term partnerships so it can increase planting to between 250 and 350 trees a year by 2026. Lower planting targets in future years are meant to take into account the time it takes for a seedling to grow enough to plant. “The program is working to build a strong foundation by focusing on long-term agreements with tree planting organizations that will in turn fuel steady demand for nurseries,” Keean Nembhard, a spokesperson for the minister of natural resources, wrote in an email to CTVNews.ca on Thursday . “As contribution agreements are signed and purchase orders are placed, nurseries will be able to invest in infrastructure and seedling production,” he added. The aim of the two billion tree target, according to the government, is to boost both climate change efforts and the economy by creating thousands of jobs, reaping the benefits of two billion more trees in the environment. A Parliamentary Budget Office report from January said the plan to plant two billion trees by 2030 would cost almost twice as much as the Liberals had budgeted.
