Metrolinx could have saved old growth trees in Toronto ravine by moving them, expert says

Metrolinx could have saved old growth trees in a small east-end Toronto ravine by moving them instead of cutting them down, an expert says.

Eric Davies, a forest ecologist at the University of Toronto, said this week that Ontario's regional transit agency could have enlisted the services of a tree-moving company to dig up, move and transplant the large old-growth trees on the southern slope of Small's Creek Ravine.

This week and last week, Metrolinx has been knocking the trees down with an excavator and cutting them up with chainsaws. There is now a pile of logs in one area of what was once a beautiful ravine located between Woodbine and Coxwell avenues.

Metrolinx says it has cut down the trees because it is building a retaining wall and new culvert to replace one that has collapsed. The work is part of the Lakeshore East rail corridor expansion project. The agency told CBC News that it consulted arborists but they said what Davies is suggesting won't work.

Davies said the big red oak and white birch trees that were on the southern slope could have "definitely" been saved. One company that specializes in "large tree transplanting" is Environment Design Inc., based in Tomball, Texas.

"Moving trees is an easy thing. Two, three hundred year old tree, you can move no problem. There's a 95 per cent survival rate. They do this all over the world," Davies said.

"It's not done a lot in Canada. They might not have even heard about it. But I think that's one technique that could really be a win-win for them and the trees and the community." 

Davies said Metrolinx would have had to identify which big trees it wanted to move and then determine if they were healthy. Then it would have had to measure the slope where the trees were growing and the slope where they would have been transplanted. 

"You cut it out, you put it in a staging box, you prune the roots and you prune the canopy, and so you basically just hold in a staging area until the construction is done and then you put it back down," he said.

"They come to the tree, they dig around it, then they put pipes underneath it and they lift it out of the ground with a crane."

The crane could have been located on the GO Train tracks next to the ravine, he added. At least one large oak tree, believed to be more than 100 years old, is still standing, but heavy machinery has been parked nearby.

Davies said Metrolinx should find a "much better way" to carry out its construction than to cut down old growth trees. He said the ravine is ecologically significant and important to the local community and it's "unimaginable" that anyone would want to cut trees down here.

"I don't think people want to do this anymore," he said. 

He said large old-growth trees hold onto more soil and rain and produce more shade than seedlings do by thousands of times. They host thousands more insects and birds than smaller trees, he said.

"In forest ecosystems, large old trees are the number one most valuable component. They are the real engines of the ecosystems," he said. "Socially, obviously, people really like old trees."

Replanting not possible, Metrolinx says

Anne Marie Aikins, spokesperson for Metrolinx, said last March, when the agency paused construction, it contacted five independent arborists to explore the idea of replanting trees in the ravine.

"Replanting these large trees is not possible, the experts said, as a tree spade large enough to dig up the trees can't operate on such a steep slope. And more trees would need to be removed to get the equipment needed into the ravine," Aikins said.

"They determined that successfully replanting not once but twice is a very difficult, expensive task given the location."

Aikins said the wood from the oak trees will be donated to Humber College's woodworking program to be transformed into "something beautiful."  She said the other wood will be donated as firewood.