Chair of the City of Melbourne’s Environment Portfolio, Cr Arron Wood, said the final precinct plans for Parkville, Southbank and Fishermans Bend were endorsed by the Future Melbourne Committee last night.
“Trees are a defining part of Melbourne. These plans represent the culmination of five years’ of research, scientific analysis and partnership with over 900 community members,” Cr Wood said.
“The precinct plans will guide the growth and management of the more than 77,000 trees that make up Melbourne’s urban forest. They were developed using feedback from hundreds of community members who told us what they want their neighbourhood streets to be like in the future.”
“In the past four years we have planted 12,000 new trees and we plan to plant over 3000 trees a year for the next decade. We are making real progress towards our target of increasing our canopy cover from 22 per cent to 40 per cent by 2040. We believe that we can cool our city’s summertime temperatures by 4C if we double the canopy cover.”
In 2009, 40 per cent of the municipality’s significant trees were declining or dying due to the impact of the millennium drought and water restrictions.
The Urban Forest Strategy was implemented in 2012 to protect and diversify Melbourne’s urban forest.
The 10-year precinct planting plans will guide the implementation of the Urban Forest strategy’s key targets in local neighbourhoods. The planting timetable prioritises areas with insufficient canopy cover, temperature hot spots, and areas where the community has identified opportunities for greening.
Cr Wood said some precincts will see more genus and species change than others as the precinct plans are rolled out over the next 10 years. “Trees are a major factor in Melbourne’s liveability.
"The dominance of different species in each precinct shows how planting preferences have changed throughout our city’s history,” said Cr Wood.
“The older precincts such as South Yarra and Carlton were commonly planted with elm trees, while the CBD and Southbank are dominated by plane trees, and the newly developed areas show a clear trend towards Australian natives.”
“In fact, more than half of the trees in the yet-to-be-developed area of Fishermans Bend are native to Australia. The level of evidence-based detail and sophistication used to make these plans is totally unique and leads the way in urban forest planning,” Cr Wood said.
People interested in urban forestry can join the ranks of the City of Melbourne’s 130 citizen foresters, who are trained and empowered to grow the urban forest by carrying out essential advocacy, monitoring and research tasks.
About our Urban Forest
Although Parkville is often thought of as being one of Melbourne’s greener areas, it actually has the fourth lowest canopy cover of any precinct at 19.4 per cent, only higher than Southbank, Docklands and Fishermans Bend.
Parkville’s canopy cover is projected to reach 40 per cent by 2040. Kensington precinct is expected to have the highest canopy cover in 2040 – it will rise from current cover of 19.7 per cent to above 45 per cent. This is largely due to the opportunities for tree planting in new development areas.
While many people believe Plane trees are the dominant genus (grouping of species) in the municipality, our most common tree genus is actually Eucalyptus (eucalypts), followed by Ulmus (elms)).
The City of Melbourne’s annual tree planting budget is $1.45 million for this financial year.
Melbourne’s most valuable tree
The City of Melbourne’s most valuable tree is a Moreton Bay Fig (Ficus macrophylla) in Fawkner Park. The tree has been in the landscape since at least 1888 and has an estimated value of almost $1.7 million. This includes environmental value of $216,682 and an amenity value of $1,323,063.
For more information visit: http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability