Mel Yuan for Brunswick

The Urban Forest Strategy and Nature Plan lead the way in thinking about a cooler and more biodiverse environment. We can do more by:

• prioritising indigenous trees
• a more active program of indigenous planting in parks, in kerb returns and roundabouts
• better defining “weeds” and undertaking coordinated weed control in public land and strengthening local laws to control weeds on private land
• continuing and strengthening community planting and coordinating with community groups

Merri-bek projects have been national leaders in re-vegation projects like the Merri Creek restoration. We are fortunate to be adjacent to the City of Melbourne’s innovate park meadows projects. Council has run a good program of community planting events on the Moonee Ponds and Edgars Creeks. More investment is needed to get Merri-bek into the list of leading urban greening councils.

However, the current waste in tree planting must be scaled back. The arbitrary annual target is a disincentive to thoughtful and useful tree planting. Trees with no habitat potential should not be arbitrarily planted in random spaces.