BIOPOLIS PROJECTS

375,000 Trees is an ambitious program that aims to plant 375,000 new trees in Greater Montreal by 2017. As an extension of the Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement (PMAD) and the Plan d’action canopée de la Ville de Montréal, the goal of the project is to increase the canopy area index of the metropolitan area by 3%.

The way the program works is simple: Montreal area organizations are invited to support the program financially, and a scientific committee evaluates the sustainability of all projects submitted during the call for proposals. Planting occurs in spring and autumn, and tree identification codes are sent to the residents, businesses and other organizations whose contributions made the plantings possible.

A Tree For My Neighbourhood is a campaign initiated by both the Regroupement des éco-quartiers (REQ) and the Société de verdissement du Montréal métropolitain (SOVERDI) encouraging Montreal citizens to plant trees on their property and enjoy their many benefits.

A Tree For My Neighborhood is part of a city-wide effort to increase the plant cover on the island of Montreal. The initiative is part of the Action Plan for the Urban Forest and 5,500 trees have been planted under the program since 2013.

A registered charitable organization founded in 1986, Les amis de la montagne’s network includes citizens from a variety of associations allied with the heads of philanthropic foundations and company presidents. Les amis de la montagne exists to protect and enhance Mount Royal through community involvement and environmental education. Through its advocacy initiatives, education and awareness-raising activities, as well as enhancement and improvement projects, Les amis de la montagne provides the community with the opportunity to exchange ideas and become involved in the preservation of Mount Royal.

They established an environmental stewardship program (PIE) in 2007 to build a more thorough understanding of the ecosystem of Mount Royal using their 25-year experience in leadership and volunteer involvement with the community, as well as longstanding partnerships with the City of Montreal and large institutional property owners on the mountain. But first and foremost, the PIE responds to the request for Montrealers to get involved in protecting their environment, providing meaningful gestures to safeguard the future of the planet.

Environmental activities include planting trees and shrubs of native species, monitoring the growth and survival of planted trees, cutting and removing buckthorn, and maintaining young trees in their educational nursery. All proposed activities are supervised by professionals and are approached scientifically to document important research, improving knowledge and understanding of methods of intervention in the natural environment.

Wild City Mapping is a project that was initiated by a group of artists, advocates for green spaces, nature lovers, and geeks. Their mission is to map the personal significance of Montréal’s wild green spaces with their on-line, open-source platform. Often thought of as abandoned, these sites are catalogued through the eyes of the citizens who use them regularly. In addition to the on-line map, they hold creative interventions in urban green spaces, from creative mapping walks to film screenings and site-specific installations.

Plan d’action Forêt Urbaine is a collective tree-planting effort in Montreal dedicated to growing and maintaining a healthy urban forest. While the City of Montreal coordinates efforts on public property, the Montreal non-profit greening company, SOVERDI (Société de verdissement du Montréal métropolitain) and the Urban Forest Alliance (l’Alliance forêt urbaine) coordinate private and institutional efforts.

Together, they have mobilized Montrealers to plant 300,000 trees over a little more than 10 years, in six major planting networks. These trees will help bring greenery to living spaces, industrial areas, schoolyards, health facilities, shopping centers, parking lots and institutions.

Les Toits Vertige is a Montreal company specializing in the design and construction of green roofs. Their mission is to transform the flat roofs of Montreal into urban oases, improving the quality of life for all without affecting urban development.

The project that has had the greatest impact on biodiversity to date is undoubtedly the green roof of the STM building on Stinson street, located in an industrial area of Ville Saint-Laurent where mineral surfaces are vast and ground vegetation is rare. Completed in 2014, it is one of the largest vegetated roofing projects in Canada, extending over an area of 72,000 ft². The roof canopy is composed of twenty species of plants, namely sedum, which bloom from May to October and attract a host of insect pollinators.

As part of Earth Day 2016, the Mayor of Saint-Laurent, Alan DeSousa, unveiled 10 biodiversity oasis to be developed throughout the year to highlight 10 years of conservation of the Marcel-Laurin park. These proposed developments include a biodiversity pond, a green rest stop, a monarch butterfly observation station, as well as floral spaces and other oases of biodiversity.

The Chemin Vert Marconi-Alexandra, a concept proposed by the Société de développement environnemental de Rosemont (SODER), will be a green corridor of biodiversity at the heart of the Alexandra-Marconi district in Rosemont/Petite-Patrie. The project will take advantage of the old railway in the neighbourhood by transforming three areas: des Carrières bike path (south of Beaubien Street), the site of the former Canadian Pacific Railway (between Beaubien and St-Zotique) and private parking west of Marconi Street.

The Chemin Vert will encourage interventions as well as green, urban, and cultural initiatives all along nearly 1.2 km of green space, in an area sorely lacking in natural or public spaces. SODER wishes to actively involve residents, merchants, homeowners and visitors of the district to promote co-creation throughout the project process.

Sauvons l’Anse-à-l’Orme is an action team that banded together to stop a vast development project in Pierrefonds-Roxboro and Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue.

The City of Montreal has announced its intention to develop 6,000 new housing units on 185 hectares of fallow agricultural land, marshlands and wetlands bordered by a beautifully dense forest. This land is currently home to a wide variety of terrestrial and aquatic wildlife, a large number of which are threatened or endangered, such as the Bobolink, the Northern Map Turtle, the American Kestrel, the Brown Snake and the Jefferson Salamander.

Sauvons L’Anse-a-l’Orme believes that this natural space should be protected in its entirety, and that any development will have irreversible effects on the biodiversity that thrives here.  In a study released by the David Suzuki Foundation in Feb 2016, it was shown that connectivity in adjoining nature parks could be reduced by up to 24%. Through massive citizen opposition to the loss of this last unprotected natural area on the island of Montreal, they hope to protect this area by creating a great new regional, provincial or national park.

The rooftop garden of Santropol Roulant is a hidden gem in the Plateau Mont-Royal district. Here community members can admire the large garden, 60 planters, beehives, and a small greenhouse. The building façade is now completely landscaped and decorated with creepers, hops and vines.

The real beauty of this garden is that it is one of the three pillars of the food cycle within Santropol Roulant. Some of the food that grows in the garden is used for their meals on wheels program, then any leftover scraps are composted by worms in the subsoil, and finally the compost is redistributed to the garden. This is not a completely closed cycle, however it still allows Santropol to reduce the distance their food travels and the amount of waste produced.

Led by the non-profit organization Sentier Urbain, whose mission is to encourage community mobilization for greener social spaces, Circuit Jardins transforms socially problematic vacant lots into naturalized, thematic gardens. These charming gardens are located in the Ville-Marie and Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve districts. They are veritable oases that strengthen the ties between humans and nature, fight the negative effects of urban heat islands, and increase the city’s biodiversity, all while creating new green spaces for citizens.

Champ des Possibles is a natural green space located in Mile End (within the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough) that is jointly managed by citizens dedicated to protecting their neighborhood since 2007. Previously, it was a yard belonging to the Canadian Pacific Railway until the end of the eighties but nature has since gone wild at the site, and we are now able to count some 300 plant and animal species, including skunks, foxes and peregrine falcons. Local residents are gradually appropriating this industrial wasteland, most notably by constructing vegetable gardens, organizing concerts, as well as cleaning and maintaining the plot.