The City’s urban forest is an essential asset in our community which provides cooling and shade, supports biodiversity, and contributes to mental and physical wellbeing, amongst many other factors. Protecting, maintaining and, ultimately, growing the City’s urban forest is an important goal for the City.
To address the urban canopy decline, the City’s Urban Forest Plan (2022) provides the vision for protecting and establishing the City’s urban forest through a series of strategies and actions.
Last year, we asked you about the role of tree canopy in your daily life and its contributions or drawbacks in relation to your property, street and neighbourhood. This has informed the preparation of a draft Tree Protection and Management Policy, which will be released for public comment later in 2024.
Enhancing engagement is an integral objective of the Urban Forest Plan and as such one of the Plan’s actions is to ‘Continually investigate and communicate innovative methods and technologies that assist and enhance community perceptions about the value of trees in the urban environment.’
Branching out in Lockridge ran a range of workshops from May - July 2024, which were designed to encourage positive perceptions regarding thee value of trees and to encourage the retention and planting of more trees throughout our community. They ranged from gardening, verge greening and a walk and talk workshop. Participants of the program, responded to a pre - program and post - program survey to demonstrate the shift of community perceptions regarding the value of trees throughout the program.
