Urban woodlands play an important role in the resiliency of cities and their surrounding neighborhoods. Amongst other things, they represent biodiversity hotspots, maintain natural habitat connectivity at the landscape level, and serve as migratory stopovers. At the same time, woodlands also contribute to human well-being and cost reduction of the public sector by regulating the micro-climate, offering recreational areas for physical activity, reducing stress levels, etc. However, the woodlands themselves, as well as their benefits, are unevenly distributed across the landscape and with respect to population demographics, lending to them being primarily in wealthier neighborhoods.
Due to the involvement of a variety of stakeholders in city planning, as well as the wide spectrum of social, economic and ecological services that natural areas fulfill, different conservation objectives often compete with one another. The goal of this project is to compare Montreal’s urban woodlands conservation priorities based on different objectives and to highlight any overlaps or trade-offs between them. Four objectives are being analyzed: ecological integrity, ecological connectivity, ecosystem services multifunctionality and human population vulnerability.