Food Forests in Fredericton increase Climate Resiliency

Prepared by Kim Perrotta MHSc

In 2025, the City of Fredericton initiated a new food forest pilot project in response to requests from the community. The goal is to plant fruit trees in parks for the use by the community. This program grew out of the City’s work on climate change adaptation and the development of its Urban Forest Management Strategy. 

Climate Change Adaptation Plan

Human-induced climate change is increasing temperatures in summer and winter months and increasing the risk of drought, while also increasing the number and intensity of heavy rainfall, storms, flood events, and long lasting floods in the City of Fredericton in New Brunswick.  While the City is working to mitigate its greenhouse gases, it has also prepared a Climate Change Adaptation Plan to prepare for the changes in its climate that are now locked-in. Published in 2019, this plan identifies six goals:

1. Maintain Health and Safety
2. Minimize Risk to Buildings and Properties
3. Strengthen Resilience of Core Built Municipal Infrastructure
4. Strengthen Resilience of Natural Infrastructure and Assets
5. Minimize Disruption to Municipal Services and Programs Offered
6. Create Partnerships and Empower the Community

Three of the recommendations included under these goals align with, and support, the food forest pilot project:

• Recommendation 1.4  – Whenever possible, maintain and continue to incorporate natural and constructed shade and/or cooling structures into public infrastructure and public spaces.
• Recommendation 4.8 – Continue to integrate climate change adaptation considerations into City park plans and practices, including preserving biodiversity and ecology, the use of native species, water and shade features, adequate tree canopy and natural drainage features.
• Recommendation 6.2 – Stay engaged with climate change work happening through the actions of individuals, groups and businesses in our community.

“We are in the process of renewing our climate change adaptation plan now,” offered Jillian Hudgins, Environmental Strategist & Program Manager for the City of Fredericton. “Flooding and extreme heat are real concerns in our community so issues related to trees, green space and parks are hot topics with our residents, as is food security.”

Urban Forest Management Strategy

To meet goal #4 in the Climate Change Adaptation Plan, Strengthen Resilience of Natural Infrastructure and Assets, the City conducted an assessment of its urban and rural forest, consulted with the public, and developed an Urban Forest Management Strategy.  This strategy applies to “all trees within the geographic City of Fredericton including street trees, forests, private lands, parks, and natural areas”. 

The City has a very high tree canopy cover compared to other cities across Canada.  For canopy heights greater than 2 metres, Fredericton has an average tree canopy coverage of 63.4% with 44.2% in its urban area and 69.6% in its rural areas.   Its urban tree canopy is much higher than Toronto’s (28%), Vancouver’s (23%), Montreal’s (20%) and Calgary’s (8%). The City is committed to maintaining that coverage and building the resiliency of its forest to the impacts of climate change, introduced and existing pests, and development pressures by increasing its tree-planting goal to 750-1000 trees/year and diversifying the tree species across the community. 

Folding Equity into the Forest Strategy

The assessment conducted for the forest strategy included the development of a socioeconomic index using Canadian census dissemination areas (     DAs).  Median values for the DAs were calculated for several factors including education level and annual income.  The populations in the DAs that had higher education and income levels than the median were deemed to be less vulnerable to extreme heat, while the populations in the DAs that had education and income levels lower than the median were considered to have higher vulnerability to extreme heat. These socioeconomic data sets were then overlaid with data for mean and peak summer temperatures to identify the      DAs that have both exposure to higher summer temperatures and populations that are more susceptible to harm from higher temperatures.  It was recommended that the occurrence of these factors  be one factor that is considered when prioritizing future tree planting and the protection of existing trees.

“Planting trees in the neighbourhoods that are home to the newcomers in our City is really important,” offered Rich Hall, City Forester with the City of Fredericton. “A lot of the newcomers to our City live in high density neighbourhoods and don’t have backyards so they make really good use of our parks for barbecues and family outings in the summer months.  We want to make sure that the parks in their neighbourhoods have shade and other amenities that make them cool and comfortable places for residents in these neighbourhoods.” 

Public Engagement Led to Food Forest

Public engagement for the City’s Urban Forest Management Strategy involved one open house, written submissions, and on-line engagement which included interactive mapping, video content, and the draft report.   Some of the submissions highlighted ideas that were not proposed by staff.  One of those ideas was the planting of fruit trees or food forests in the City’s parks.  This idea was raised several times from individual residents as well as by resident groups.  So, a recommendation was added to the strategy to select a park and plant fruit trees as a pilot project. 

“We picked a park, Wilmot Park, for our pilot project.  It is used a lot for summer camps and is located close to a multi-cultural community centre” explained Victoria Cray, Forest Technician with the City of Fredericton.  “We purchased 30 fruit trees.  We selected five different species – cherry, apple, peach, plum and mulberry.  And we planted them with partner plants that will deter pests, and with plants that can be used as herbs or as medicinal plants, and with plants that support pollinators”.

“Last summer was our first summer with the food forest pilot project so it is too early to tell how this is going to work out,” explained Hall.  “It is going to take 5-8 years before we have any fruit from our trees but people seem really excited about the project already.  Staff have already noticed that people are using herbs and the other plants that have been planted with the trees.”

“The food forest pilot project has so many co-benefits,” noted Hudgins.  “In time, the trees will provide shade and fruit in an underserviced neighbourhood that experiences higher temperatures and some food insecurity.  But already the process of planting the trees, herbs and flowers in this park has helped to build a sense of community in that neighbourhood. Social cohesion is an important element in climate resiliency; one that can save peoples’ lives in an extreme heat event.”