Tree lines street in Vancouver with cars parked on either side.

Vancouver's urban forest

Vancouver’s urban forest includes every tree in the city. With 160,000 street trees, thousands of park trees, and 713 hectares of forest, each tree plays an important environmental and social role in Vancouver, including: 

  • Cleaning the air
  • Capturing carbon
  • Absorbing rainwater
  • Providing habitat
  • Improving our health and well-being
  • Protect our city from storms, extreme heat, and the impacts of climate change

Our vision is to protect, expand, and manage trees to create a diverse, resilient, and beautiful urban forest on public and private lands across our city.

Benefits of the urban forest

Vancouver will experience hotter, drier summers, more frequent and intense rainfall events, and rising sea levels because of climate change. The urban forest plays an increasingly important role as we experience the effects of climate change. 

Caring for the urban forest

Urban Forestry projects 

Stanley Park forest management

Stanley Park is experiencing a hemlock looper infestation which has caused widespread damage to trees within the park.

The Urban Forest Strategy

We recognize there are competing values and objectives in dealing with trees. This strategy provides a clear and balanced approach to protecting and expanding the urban forest in our city.

An update on the Urban Forestry Strategy will be communicated in fall 2023. To learn more about this initiative, see the details below.

Related initiatives and bylaws

Protection of Trees By-law

Preserves, protects, and strengthens our urban forest, while permitting property owners to remove trees for property maintenance and development.

Coolkit (external website)

Equipping citizens and communities with the skills they need to evaluate and improve the canopy cover in their neighbourhood.