Canberra's Tree Canopy Target

ACT Greens Podcast

Ft: Andrew Braddock MLA,

To paraphrase the late American R & B musician Luther Ingram, If Loving Trees Is Wrong, I Don’t Wanna Be Right.

Maybe not everyone is willing to wear their tree-hugging heart on their sleeve like I am, but is there any real disagreement on the benefits of trees, not just in the bush but in our urban landscapes?

They provide shade in our parks and over our streets and pathways. They cool our homes and beautify our suburbs. They reduce air pollution and help remove not just CO2 but nitrous oxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide and ground-level ozone. They provide habitat and enhance biodiversity. They can provide wind-breaks and shelter from rain.

These benefits are nice to have. They’re also, if you’re inclined this way, able to be expressed in an actual dollar value. For example, New York’s urban trees remove enough air pollutants to provide an estimated $9.5 million of value to the city every year. Across Australia, homes with trees in their gardens or in their street achieve consistently higher sale prices than homes without.

The ACT Government needs no convincing on the tree thing. It has already set a target of 30% urban tree cover by 2045. The question now is not a matter of whether or why, but how?