The Town of Hudson proudly embraces environmental values that protect residents’ health and the local ecosystem. Hudson is famous for being the first North American Town to ban pesticides in 1991.
In 2001, two agricultural companies initiated legal proceedings against the Town of Hudson, contending that the Town had impinged upon their right to spread pesticides. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld Hudson’s by-law, thereby awarding a major victory for all municipal governments.
Since that resounding victory, over 125 cities and municipalities across Canada, including Toronto and Ottawa, have followed Hudson’s lead in eliminating the use of pesticides.
Hudson is bird-friendly!
In 2023, the Town of Hudson was certified as a “Bird Friendly City” by Nature Canada, a non-profit conservation organization.
Bird populations are in decline worldwide. According to Nature Canada, bird populations in North America have declined more than 25% within the last 50 years.
BIRD PROTECTION MEASURES
In November of 2022, Town Council passed a resolution in favour of pursuing certification. Specialists from Le Nichoir, in partnership with the Town’s Environment Committee, are currently undertaking steps to put in place multiple bird protection measures such as:
• The reduction of human related threats such as pesticide use and collisions with glass.
• Habitat protection, restoration and climate resiliency.
• Community outreach and education.
To find out how you can do your part to protect our birds: Hudson Eco
TREE SUBSIDY PROGRAM
In 2021, the Town of Hudson began offering subsidies to residents to plant trees on their property.
Residents wishing to benefit from this financial aid must complete the subsidy request form and provide the following documents:
- Proof of residency;
- An invoice for the purchase of a tree (or trees), from the business of their choice; and
- A photograph of the purchased tree(s).
Replacement trees must be at least 1.8 m high and 3 cm in diameter, measured at a height of 1 m from the ground. Residents can receive up to a maximum of $100 per year if all the eligibility conditions are met.
Only one financial aid request may be submitted per address per year.
To ensure the protection of the environment, the planning department will:
Enforce the pesticide ban as authorized by law
Develop new programs to promote sustainable development
Educate Hudson residents about environmental programs
Ensure the protection of natural resources
Foster sustainability
Implement innovative environmental projects
In accordance with its waste management policy, the town of hudson is committed to:
Reduce to 275 kg per resident the amount of waste disposed of (a decrease of 122 kg per resident from 2011)
Recycle 60% of organic waste
Send 70% of waste resulting from construction, renovation and demolition to the Ecocentre
For the general guidelines and strategies of our 2012-2015 ACTION PLAN, consult the
In 2012, as part of its initiative to reduce greenhouse gases, the Town of Hudson, in collaboration with numerous merchants, installed over 40 Turn off your Engine! signs.
This campaign is aimed at protecting the environment, protecting residents’ health and saving gas at the same time.
Learn more about the Turn off your Engine! campaign!
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
