Looking up through a mature layered forest canopy, blue sky visible through autumn leaves

Urban forest monitoring · Montréal

Know if your trees are working — and prove it.

Nature Contact gives municipalities, universities, and community planters the data to make real decisions, meet sustainability commitments, and show results to the people who need to see them.

Belvédère Terry Fox · Montréal · 2025

How it works

Plant it. Power it. Watch what happens.

01

Deploy on day one

A solar-powered monitoring station goes in on planting day. No grid connection, no permits, no setup beyond opening the case.

02

Data starts immediately

Bird species, light levels, temperature, and soundscape data stream continuously to a shared dashboard via cellular connection.

03

Compare across sites

Track biodiversity and canopy closure over months and years. Compare your planting to others in the network — same method, different site.

04

Report with confidence

Show your council, your funder, or your community what the data says. Not just trees planted — trees that are working.

Researcher with clipboard recording data among dense green planting at the tiny forest

The problem we're solving

A billion trees planted. Almost none monitored.

~1 billion
trees planted across Canada
$5M
spent on trees in Montréal alone — with no systematic outcome tracking
1 person
responsible for monitoring all of Montréal's urban trees

The dominant metric today is how many trees were planted — not whether they survived, whether they're in the right locations, or whether they're actually sequestering carbon.

Team measuring trees at Saint-Jacques and Wilson, Montréal, with city street and autumn trees visible behind

The Miyawaki method

Dense, layered urban forests that establish fast

Up to 600 trees per tennis-court-sized area, planted in four canopy layers with prepared soil to accelerate root networks. The method is widely used across Europe and Asia — Quebec is only beginning to adopt it, and has no baseline monitoring data yet.

Nature Contact is building that baseline — starting in Montréal.
600 trees / tennis court 4-layer canopy Open-source data

Who it's for

Built for the people responsible for urban green space

🏛️

Municipalities

Get outcome data for tree planting programmes. Report to council with evidence, not estimates.

🌲

Community planters

Members of the Green Communities Canada network and local tiny-forest groups planting with the Miyawaki method.

🎓

Universities & institutions

Meet net-zero commitments with verified data. Compare your planting strategy against a growing network of monitored sites.

🔭

Researchers

Access open-source biodiversity and microclimate data across urban forest sites for carbon modelling and ecology studies.

Get involved

We're placing our first monitoring stations this fall

We're looking for three or four founding partner sites across Canada. If you're managing a planting and want real data from day one, let's talk.

Become a founding partner See the live dashboard