Canada plans to plant up to 320 million trees a year to meet Trudeau’s 2 billion target

The move follows sharp criticism of delays in the tree-planting plan which was promised by the Prime Minister during the 2019 election campaign.

The government is planning to plant up to 320 million trees a year to meet the prime minister’s target to put an extra two billion trees in the ground by 2030.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson on Thursday launched a recruitment drive to find tree planters _ including farmers, Indigenous communities and non-profit organizations _ to plant millions of extra trees a year.

The move follows sharp criticism of delays in the tree-planting plan which was promised by the Prime Minister during the 2019 election campaign.

An access-to-information request by The Canadian Press found that, up until mid-November, only 8.5 million trees had been planted _ less than half a per cent of the trees Trudeau pledged to put in the ground.

During the 2019 election, Justin Trudeau promised to plant two billion trees within 10 years.

Natural Resources blames the slow start on a lack of seedlings, which can take between two to three years to grow.

It published a road map to reaching its goal on Thursday with plans to plant 60 million trees next year, rising to 100 million in 2024, 200 million in 2025 and 320 million trees in 2027, 2028 and 2029, at a cost of as much as $355 million a year.

The government earmarked funding for a “mass planting stream” for organizations pledging to plant at least 500,000 trees. It also launched a call for proposals in the “urban and suburban planting stream” for groups that could plant at least 10,000 trees.