Foxes, butterflies, snakes: Montrealers hope COP15 attention will help urban wildlife, too

Despite a constant, cold drizzle on a Montreal afternoon, Chris Breier thought it was as good a time as ever to do his volunteer work at Falaise St-Jacques, an escarpment west of downtown.

Five days a week for most of the past year since he retired, Breier has tended the slope of forest sandwiched between St-Jacques Street in Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, Highway 20 and a railroad. 

He helps maintain the paths that zigzag through the woods, installing logs to outline those paths and cutting vines to prevent them from strangling trees.

Each time, he'll spend about "three to five hours — I should really do three, but I can't stop," said Breier, who was a sound, light and camera guy during his decades-long career in television. 

"This is the most incredible thing that I could have discovered when I retired," he said. "The health benefits of this forest are incredibly important to the community."

Before volunteers began tending to it in recent years, the forest had become a dumping ground for everything from household garbage and tires to dirty snow that had accumulated in parking lots. 

Volunteers like Breier are vital to Montreal's urban biodiversity, according to local ecologists who hope the attention from the city hosting COP15 this month will lead to the expansion of more green spaces on its territory, and more citizen involvement in maintaining them.

They want officials around the world to understand the importance of supporting wildlife — not just outside of cities, but within them as well. 

"It's essential that urban citizens feel connected to nature," said Roger Jochym, a co-ordinator for Sauvons la falaise, a group that has been fighting to protect and promote the natural beauty of the escarpment, which is a habitat for birds, foxes, butterflies and one of the most significant populations of brown snakes in the province.

"Young people … should be able to walk out of their classroom, walk a couple of blocks and be within nature, within a natural setting, and understand what they're learning in the classroom."

In a statement about what to expect at this year's COP15, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), listed fragmentation of natural areas as one of the key issues the conference plans to address. 

"Fragmentation and land-use changes — driven by agriculture and urban sprawl — are driving 80 per cent of biodiversity loss in many areas," it said.

In its 2023 budget, released last month, the city of Montreal announced plans to spend $180.9 million on natural infrastructure, including parks and green areas to help absorb rainwater and curb heat retention. 

The city says it also plans to increase the connections between natural areas with a network of "green corridors." Corridors linking green spaces can help wildlife get from one area to the next, improving the biodiversity in each. Ecologists have observed a decrease in species over the years on Mount Royal, with few options of other green spaces for animals to travel to.