10 Jul Eco2urb Final report – Results and recommendations towards a conservation plan
Conserving natural areas in urban environments promotes resilient and connected ecosystems. These concepts are integrated within the Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD) adopted in 2012 by the Montreal Metropolitan Community (MMC). PMAD aims to conserve 17% of the surface area of the MMC, an objective first proposed by the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity (CMM 2012; SCBD 2010). Considering this goal, the Town of Hudson has funded research to develop and improve its conservation plan. Namely, in 2008, the town mandated field inventories by the firm Teknika HBA to characterize its natural areas and the distribution of vulnerable species. An initial conservation plan was proposed in 2017 by the firm CIMA+ for the town’s urban core. The objective of the collaboration between Eco2urb and Hudson in 2019 was to build on past efforts to prioritize and rank natural areas for conservation across the entirety of the town’s natural areas. This prioritization will help inform urban planning initiatives and achieve the objectives set by PMAD, promoting biodiversity, ecosystem services, connectivity and resilience.
Specifically, the objectives of the mandate between Eco2urb and the Town of Hudson are as follows:
- Collate and validate reference data
- Produce biodiversity, landscape connectivity and ecosystem service maps
- Rank green spaces in terms of their conservation and ecosystem service values
- Define scenarios of landscape change through workshops and forecast future impacts on conservation priorities
- Report findings and make recommendations to the town council
To consult the Press Release: Click here
To consult the full Report: Click here
