Page 1363 - Week 05 - Thursday, 18 June 2020
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live here value very, very highly, and we want future generations to also enjoy those benefits of living in the bush capital. We all, I think, understand the mental health benefits of trees and the natural relaxation and relief from everyday stresses that trees, urban forests, native forests bring to individuals. Studies have suggested that contact with natural environments promotes psychological restoration, improved mood, improved attention and reduced stress and anxiety.
Trees can also bring relief from the weather, especially in summer. They are vital to cooling and reducing the heat island effect that we can get in the capital. With development going on, we have more and more concrete and bitumen and hard surfaces in our everyday life in our suburbs, in our city, and that can be an extremely hot area. Having more trees can also bring relief from pollution, whether it is noise pollution or air pollution. Trees are important in helping to reduce that pollution. Planting one million trees over a decade is one of many practical things that we can do here in the ACT, and it benefits all of us.
Our trees also add a wonderful seasonal procession for us. Sometimes the falling of the leaves in some of our suburbs can be a bit problematic, but for many Canberrans observing that real difference in the seasons through the colouring of the trees is a real delight for them—the spring growth, the autumn colours and the beauty of the winter trees, not to mention the shade that they bring in the summertime.
But under this government there are some suburbs which, because of their narrow streets, small houses and lack of trees, will never understand and experience that. Kids in those homes will not be able to have a tree house in a tree in their backyard like many of us had when we were young. They will not be able to have a swing hanging from a tree in their backyard like many of us had. It is something that we all would like to see more of, but the design and the planning in this place has made that out of reach for many Canberrans.
Their urban renewal precincts have made tree cover more and more difficult, and do not forget that this is the government that chops down trees when it wants. They chopped down trees, 450 or so trees, on Northbourne Avenue. They chop down trees for solar farms. They chop down trees and often tell us it is because they are diseased. But they are diseased when it suits this government.
I remind members of Lindsay Pryor’s seminal reference on Canberra trees from 1991. In fact, the first Labor Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said in the foreword of this book:
This book will be a useful resource for those involved in planning and planting trees in Canberra.
Unfortunately I do not think it is a resource book, a reference book, for this government. I do not think any of them have ever read this book. But it notes that, prior to European settlement of the Limestone Plains in the early 1820s, most of the valleys in which our town centres now sit were treeless. But over the following years these treeless plains have been planted with millions of trees, most of which have been planted by private citizens. There are millions of trees where there had been
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