TORONTO — The recent death of a woman who was hit by a falling branch in a popular Toronto park has highlighted the need to carefully maintain the more than 3.5 million trees in the city's public spaces, arborists say.
Pari Nadimi, a 71-year-old owner of an art gallery, died days after being struck by a falling branch in Trinity Bellwoods Park late last month.
While such occurrences are rare, arborists say trees that are not properly maintained or inspected can pose a danger.
"It's becoming clear that the parks should be a higher priority," said arborist Michael Addison.
Municipal maintenance of trees can rely too heavily on a reactive approach, where a city depends on the public to report issues rather than making proactive regular checks, Addison said.
"They're kind of like assuming the public will contact them. They are out there looking at them to some degree, but I don't think as much as they should be," he said.
As of 2019, Toronto had approximately 10.2 million trees. Of those, an estimated 600,000 were city-owned street trees, 3.5 million were in city parks and over six million were in private areas.
The city has said that its staff conduct inspections of trees across Toronto throughout the year but cases of falling branches can still happen, even with healthy trees.
Todd Irvine, a certified arborist and educator, said attention should be paid to how frequently trees are pruned or trimmed.
"Pruning can definitely help a tree and make it more structurally sound,” Irvine said. "But in many cases pruning can make trees more susceptible to wind damage, more susceptible to an early decline in health because of poor pruning (that) is wounding."
Nadimi's death, while tragic, should not scare members of the public away from trees in Toronto's parks, Irvine said.
"When tragedies like this happen ... what can we do from a maintenance perspective to ensure that it doesn't happen again or as infrequently as humanly possible?” he said. "That doesn't mean cutting all the trees down."
Irvine said the city should prioritize trees in parks with heavy pedestrian traffic and publicly report how often trees are maintained, as well as what standards they are being pruned to.
"They need to be using the most up-to-date and cutting edge arboricultural practices and standards," he said.
Arborist Wayne Anthony said trees that could pose problems should be inspected every six months, but noted that can be difficult given how many trees there are in public spaces across the city.
"To go and assess every tree with an advanced tree assessment would be nearly impossible for all the city-owned trees," Anthony said.
The city has said it pays $1.7 million on average per month to three contractors to provide daily tree maintenance services, including pruning, watering and removing trees. It also employs its own tree crews.
Concerns over the city’s tree maintenance schedule were found in a 2019 report by Toronto Auditor General Beverly Romeo-Beehler, who found the city was losing millions a year on its contracts with private arborists.
The report found that the city's urban forestry office “did not meet the required minimum number of on-site and quality control inspections in both 2017 and 2018.”
A 2021 follow-up of the report by the same auditor noted improvements from 2019, but said “many concerns from our original audit persist” and further action is needed.
The city said earlier this week that the tree with the branch that fell on Nadimi had been removed and city staff were analyzing it. A spokesperson also said city employees were conducting visual assessments of trees located in high-use areas in Trinity Bellwoods Park.
"A primary focus of the city is maintaining city trees in a safe and healthy condition, which is critical for establishing a mature, sustainable urban forest," Bradlee Bomberry had said.
Last week, a child died in British Columbia after being hit by a falling tree while in a provincial park.
In early July, Manitoba RCMP said they were investigating the death of a man who was apparently killed in a tent by a falling tree while at a campground near Lake Winnipeg.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 3, 2023.
William Eltherington, The Canadian Press
