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Urban forestry programs work to ensure canopy cover to mitigate the impacts of urbanization and to provide a liveable environment for an increasing population. But they continue to be challenged with urban sprawl that reduces natural forest cover and creates unsuitable growing conditions. A broadened global market and climate change are added challenges. Urban forests are genereally more diverse than native forests as the nursery industry, landscape architects and urban foresters experiment with exotic, ornamental tree species and cultivars for a variety of reasons. Although these trees have many good uses in the urban environment, they individually lack genetic diversity, do not contribute to the local ecology, can become invasive and are not well-adapted to a region's growing conditions. Many urban forestry programs across Canada are refocusing on the importance of native tree species in the urban environment to preserve the integrity of the local ecology and to improve resilience in our urban canopy as we experience greater and more frequent fluctuations in our weather conditions. This presentation will discuss the attributes of using native trees in the urban environment and the associated challenges.