About 20 Metre Trees
and the importance of trees in our local environment
What is the aim of 20 Metre Trees?
20 Metre Trees is a Facebook page established in 2017 with the aim of raising awareness of the importance of trees in our local environment. Cities around the world are now seeing trees as a critical part of urban infrastructure. With already some of the lowest level of tree canopy coverage of any major city in Australia, Adelaide’s canopy cover continues to decline for a variety of reasons. 20 Metre Trees hopes to reverse this trend through educating people about trees, their benefits and highlighting issues with the existing regulations that apply to trees.
Why are trees important?
Trees play a substantial and often underrated service to our community. Research has shown that they increase house prices, improve mental health and wellbeing, and help to stimulate children’s mental, physical and social development.
Environmentally, they play a massive role in providing crucial homes and food to our local wildlife. Tree canopy cover significantly reduces urban temperatures (and therefore your power bills for heating and cooling!), improve air quality and capture carbon.
Why are all the trees disappearing?
Canopy Cover across metropolitan Adelaide decreased from 21.37% in 2013 to 19.45% in 2016 – a loss of 1.92%. Luckily, more recent figures show some councils are starting to reverse this loss. However, large trees in metropolitan Adelaide are still under threat.
Since their originally introduction, South Australia’s significant and regulated tree laws have been consistently watered down. With so many exemptions now in place, there are often no checks and balances to prevent the unnecessary removal of large trees. This is especially applicable for the “Amazon suburbs” of Adelaide, those with the highest amount of canopy cover, located in the Adelaide Hills and green foothills.
The watering down of these ‘protections’ has had a variety of impacts including:
- 1
Wholesale clearing of blocks of land for development purposes and urban densification, even when many of the trees could have been incorporated into the design of the new house
- 2
Large trees being removed because they ‘make a mess’ or for solar panels,
- 3
Undermining the work of qualified arborists who try and provide the right advice, with people going to cheaper alternatives
- 4
The unnecessary removal of large areas of native vegetation
- 5
Increased friction between neighbours, especially if new residents move in and clear their block of trees
The mentality of ‘I like nature but not in my backyard’ will have significant unforeseen consequences on our local environment. Local Councils in conjunction with the State Government are spending millions each year trying to green our suburbs. Much of this work though is undermined by the current regulations. It is possible to have laws that prevent the unnecessary removal of trees in our urban environment, while also allowing for development and maintaining public safety.
So what can be done to retain and grow more trees?
The 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide outlines a vision for how Adelaide should grow to become more liveable, competitive and sustainable. The plan is supported by both past Labor and current Liberal Governments. The plan outlines two goals for urban tree cover:
- For council areas with less than 30% tree canopy cover currently, cover should be increased by 20% by 2045.
- For council areas with more than 30% tree canopy cover currently, this should be maintained to ensure no net loss by 2045.
Given the benefits of trees in our urban environment and the cost savings that they bring in a variety of different areas from mental health, reducing stormwater and cleaning our air, these goals are important to reach.
Reaching these goals is possible, but will require a concerted effort from Local and State Government, as well as you, the public. Currently, there is not enough space on public land to offset the loss of tree canopy on private land. This means that retaining the canopy on private land will be critical for reaching these goals. For this to happen, changes to the existing regulations for regulated and significant trees to prevent the many unnecessary removals currently occurring is required.