Page 1307 - Week 04 - Tuesday, 5 April 2011
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... 70 per cent of Canberra urban forest, about 400 000 trees, would be cut down and replaced within 25 years ... the felling of healthy but aging trees with 10 years to live was inevitable.
I think a lot of Canberrans found that really disturbing. The commissioner got some other independent experts. A Dr Greg Moore came to the conclusion that there was really no need for this worst-case scenario; it was unlikely to unfold. He said:
… I do not think one third or more of Canberra’s urban tree population is in need of imminent replacement if it is well managed and appropriate maintenance is carried out following tree assessments.
And that is really one of the key points. We have to start putting our efforts into tree management, not tree chopping down. TAMS apparently currently spends 15 per cent of its tree-related budget on program maintenance for Canberra’s urban street and park trees, and of that two to three per cent is in fact spent on clearing powerline easements for ActewAGL. It is aiming to achieve a program maintenance spread of 65 per cent, but there is no time frame as yet for that. I have to say that the idea of moving to that 65 per cent rather than 15 per cent has got to be one of the better ideas coming out of this.
The urban forest renewal program in fact put a lot of emphasis on Canberra’s existing even aged streetscapes, and this was why they felt that we should consider chopping down whole streets worth of trees which would potentially remove many healthy trees. I think it was pretty clear that a lot of the community thought this was not a good idea. People do not want healthy trees chopped down in their street, and one of the very positive things out of this is that we have got rid of that—I hope we have got rid of that—as an aim. We want to keep our healthy trees.
I will now start going through the commissioner’s recommendations. Her first high priority recommendation was to replace the proposed urban forest renewal program with a comprehensive and integrated urban tree maintenance and management program focused on the care and maintenance of Canberra’s treed landscape. So we have a focus on maintenance and tree protection and she was talking about integrating this within Canberra’s planning framework. I think those are all incredibly positive ideas.
Recommendation 2 talks about how trees and the treed landscape should become part of the ministerial statement of planning intent and the strategic planning framework. As the Greens’ planning spokesperson and as a bit of a planning nerd, I have to say I very much support these recommendations. The commissioner is talking about new tree legislation which would incorporate provisions of the Tree Protection Act 2005 or possibly amend it. I think this is an excellent idea and the directions in which she is suggesting this would move are very positive.
One of the things she has highlighted is that our current tree protection is basically for private trees, trees on leased lands, in our front and back yards. We do not have a similar regime for trees which the government has custody of, urban trees on unleased
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