Save Fairview Forest’s (SFF) annual general assembly was an inspiring evening spent celebrating victories and renewing passion for the protection of Fairview Forest. The 20-hectare, over-100-year-old woodland is threatened by new urban development around the Pointe-Claire REM station.
The evening of March 25th saw members of SFF seated alongside local supporters, 2 city councilors, a representative of the Parti Vert du Quebec, members of the Green Coalition, and the Legacy Fund’s own Seonaid Newell-Macintosh to hear the organization’s annual report. Seonaid’s thoughts on the incredible victories the group celebrated and their exciting plans for the future are below.
“SFF have done incredible work in the past year. Their advocacy in the 2025 municipal elections has garnered them strong support among many Pointe-Claire councilors and made Fairview Forest an unavoidable municipal talking point. I was particularly excited to hear that the biodiversity study funded by the Legacy Fund and carried out by TerraHumana Solutions in 2023, which revealed the presence of 35 species at risk, as well as the designation of the forest as a ‘Milieu Naturel d’intérêt écologique’ in the new PMAD, motivated the City of Pointe-Claire to approve the commissioning of its own ecosystem services study (as well as a Ecological characterization study) on the forest. This study is sure to reveal the incredible value that the forest holds as a heat sink, carbon store, drainage area – especially considering the increasingly torrential downpours Montreal gets every autumn – and as habitat for our urban wildlife neighbours. To supplement our study and the City’s, SFF and the Centre Quebecois du Droit en Environnement also recently won an access to information case to see previously-redacted documents on the ecological value of the forest. It can’t be denied by anyone anymore – Fairview Forest isn’t just important to the locals, it’s important to the biosphere.”
SFF has been fighting for over five years to protect and preserve this urban forest ecosystem. Though their fight continues, 2025’s promising developments bode well for the future of this important community space, and the Legacy Fund celebrates and continues to support SFF’s incredible initiatives.
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