Page 1353 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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great for the environment, providing habitat for native animals, including flowering trees for bees. Looking towards the next few decades, that urban forest will be essential to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
We are also aware of some of the challenges facing our urban forest. For context, four major tree plantings have been undertaken in the history of our city. Many of these trees are coming to the end of their life. This means that we have to confront the large number of trees which will be reaching the end of their life in the coming decade, which is exacerbated by our changing climate.
At present, the ACT has approximately 760,000 trees in our urban forest. Our government has a target outlined in the climate change strategy and the living infrastructure plan to increase Canberra’s tree canopy coverage from 21 per cent at present to 30 per cent by 2045.
Meeting this 30 per cent target requires careful planning and investment to maintain and grow an urban forest that is healthy, diverse and resilient to a changing climate. Our government has taken responsible action to manage our urban forest, starting with the fifth largest planting of trees in our city’s history, with over 20,000 trees being planted over the next three years—not just the 4,000 that Ms Lee talked about. We are planting 4,000 in this autumn and winter alone; more are to come in spring.
Canberrans can now see the extent of the tree planting program for themselves right across our city, with new trees being planted on street verges and parks across the city. Whether it is Strickland Crescent in Deakin or Summerland Crescent in Kambah, there are huge numbers of trees that have been planted just over the last few months, and we have been working with community groups on this.
In Mitchell we will have planted 34 new trees by the end of this winter, including crepe myrtles and pears. That is on top of the 78 that we planted last year in Mitchell. The government has been actively engaging with the Mitchell traders to improve the amenity of the precinct through replacing trees and enhancing growing conditions. Mitchell is a challenging location due to the large areas of hard surfacing. Tree replacement involves significant work to physically excavate and remove root balls, expand the size of tree surrounds and tree pits and ensure surrounding paving issues are addressed. This case study demonstrates that tree planting takes preparation, planning and maintenance in an urban environment.
Although Canberra consists of a large urban footprint, it is mostly low density. There are many constraints at play in planning for undertaking tree planting. Our city services teams work year round to look after the trees in our city and to plant thousands of new ones. When finding locations to plant new trees, they have to consider the size of the space or verge they want to plant on; what underground services may be present, or above-ground infrastructure like driveways, footpaths and streetlights; whether that location may be subject to future investment like a road duplication or footpath installation; species selection in light of the existing streetscape, available soil volume, suitability to the current and projected climate, best practice species diversity ratios, wildlife connectivity and foraging corridors, future planning for solar access and tree qualities such as growth rate and, of course, canopy
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