In a Facebook post on July 21, 2026, Victoria City Councillor Jeremy Caradonna highlighted the City’s climate accomplishments, including the expansion of the urban forest.
Unfortunately, his summary does not accurately reflect the City’s own technical report.
Councillor Caradonna wrote that Victoria’s canopy increased from 26% to 30% since 2020 (monitoring to 2023).
According to Terra Remote Sensing’s 2025 Vegetation Canopy Change Detection Analysis, between 2007 and 2023, Victoria’s urban forest area grew from 26.41% to 30.01%, a 3.6% increase over 16 years.
Between 2019 and 2023, the report recorded a 1.37% net increase in canopy—not a four-percentage-point increase over three years.
The rate of City-wide canopy growth fell by greater than 50% between monitoring periods of 2013-2019 (2.37%) and 2019 to 2023 (1.08%).
This matters because numbers tell a story. While Victoria’s urban forest is still growing, it is growing much more slowly than it once was. Taking the average rate of growth per 5 year monitoring period (1.16%), the City’s 40% canopy target (to reach by 2050) would not be reached until approximately 2069, assuming development pressures, climate impacts, and tree losses do not increase.
Perhaps the bigger issue is public trust. Most residents will never read a technical remote sensing report—they rely on elected officials to summarize the evidence accurately. If readily available facts about the urban forest are being misstated, who is checking them? And if no one is, how many other technical reports are being summarized inaccurately without anyone noticing?
Climate action depends on good science. Public confidence depends on getting the facts right.
References
- Terra Remote Sensing. City of Victoria Vegetation Canopy Change Detection Analysis 2007–2023 (Phase 3).March 2025.
- City of Victoria. Official Community Plan 2050.
- Jeremy Caradonna. Climate Action: Is It a Priority? Facebook post, July 21, 2026.
