Emerald ash borer could decimate the urban forest Explore This
Story If you could have saved the mature elm trees of Toronto
from the ravages of the Dutch elm disease, would you have done
it? If I offered you the chance to invest, say, $1,000 spread
over six to eight years (approximately $150 a year) in return
for $2,000 to $3,000, would you be interested? If I told you
that the oxygen that we breathe every day and the shade that we
seek on a hot summer day is at risk of being depleted by up to
10 per cent within the next three to five years and that much of
this depletion is completely avoidable, would you be concerned?
Would you want to know more? Only one of these questions is
hypothetical and that is the first one. We lost virtually all of
our American elm trees in this city in the 1960s and ’70’s
(except the beauties in front of the Manulife head office on
Bloor St., curiously). There was no risk-free preventive measure
that could have been taken at the time that the Dutch elm
disease moved through Toron