Behind the fence line in the Mount Royal Park forest, a white trillium plant slowly gains strength, safe from passing joggers and cyclists.
It can take up to 10 years for the plant to produce its first flower. The flower lasts for about three weeks in early spring.
This trillium is considered an endangered plant species in Quebec. But as Mount Royal, Montreal’s signature park, grows in popularity—at last count, more than five million people visited it annually—its rich plant life is becoming more vulnerable to humans.
“It’s an evolving problem,” said Antonin St-Jean, head of maintenance at Slag Friends of the Mountaintrustees of Mount Royal.
During a recent walk through the park, St-Jean explained how visitors can damage the plants through recreational activities like mountain biking, trail running and off-trail walking. Conservationists strive to find a balance between keeping the park accessible to visitors and protecting the natural habitat that makes it unique.
“There were a lot fewer people up there, maybe 20 years ago,” he said. “I think it’s become very popular now, and since COVID, even more so.”
Development of urban nature parks
Similar nature conservation programmes are implemented in other city parks.
For example, High Park in Toronto has management group which plants native species and removes invasive ones. Volunteers in Stanley Park in Vancouver survey trails and wooded areas to monitor the impact and spread of invasive plants.
Parks Canada has committed to creating 15 new urban parks by 2030. Last spring, the federal government put aside $36 million over five years for Ojibway National Park in Windsor, Ontario.
Dylan Rawlyk, a conservation manager at Nature Canada, works with park management groups across the country to help them protect rare species.
“It’s a constant challenge,” he said.
Efforts to preserve biodiversity in southern Canada are particularly important, he said: “That’s where most of our population lives, but it’s also one of the most biodiverse areas in Canada. And so by nature, there’s always that tension.
“Some measures need to be taken to ensure that this site remains a beautiful natural area, [which is] why people come there at all.”
Protection of endangered plant species
Mount Royal is home to more than 700 species of plants, 90 species of trees and 180 different birds. It is also home to 10 species of plants that are threatened in Quebec, including white trillium, campanula and red canadensis.
Yarrow is particularly delicate.
Each spring a single palmate leaf grows on the rootstock and a single white flower appears which opens in spring and provides an important food source for many insects early in the season.
“Only a few percent of the seeds will actually germinate, and in most cases it takes many years before they produce their first flowers,” said St-Jean of Friends of the Mountain.
The Mount Royal park management group is also working to remove invasive species, such as dog strangle vine, that are spreading throughout the forest and threatening some of the vegetation.
“We have the potential to have really large populations of these different plant species, which is quite rare in southern Quebec,” he said.