Nature Play SA concerned as almost 40 Football Park-sized ovals worth of trees lost in Charles Sturt Council
IMAGINE, if you can, enough trees to fill 40 Football Park-sized ovals – that’s how many have been lost in one suburban Adelaide council area this past decade. What does this mean for our kids?
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CLOSE to 40 Football Park-sized ovals worth of trees has been lost across the Charles Sturt Council district in the past decade, as people trade in their backyards to make way for new homes.
A council-commissioned study, released in April, has found tree-canopy cover in the district has declined by about 690,000sq m since 2008.
The study’s author, environmental consultant Dr Jenni Garden, attributed it to a loss of trees on private land, which she said was outweighing the council’s efforts to plant more on public land.
“The pattern of land-cover change is indicative of the process of urban infill, where properties are subdivided and trees removed to make way for increased development density,” Dr Garden said.
Nature Play SA chief executive Sarah Sutter was concerned by the loss of trees, which she said were “crucial for the health of communities and especially children”.
“We really encourage tree climbing for children as it is essential for their development,” Ms Sutter said.
“It grows their confidence, develops co-ordination, problem solving, their strength and it also gives them a connection to nature as well, which is really important.
“If we can get a kid away from a screen and climbing a tree instead, it is only going to be good for them.”
The study was conducted last year and analysed tree-canopy cover across Charles Sturt from 1998 to 2014.
It showed that Woodville West and Findon had the biggest drops in tree cover on private land, falling by 9 per cent and 7.8 per cent respectively.
Other suburbs to suffer significant declines included Cheltenham, Flinders Park, Henley Beach, Ovingham, Seaton, West Hindmarsh and Woodville North.
Charles Sturt’s canopy cover was among the lowest in Adelaide at 14.3 per cent.
Dr Garden said the study used aerial images of overall tree cover, and it was not possible to say how many individual trees had and been chopped down in Charles Sturt.
The council has included $100,000 in its 2017/18 draft budget to develop a strategy to improve tree-canopy cover.
Charles Sturt acting chief executive Bruce Williams said the strategy would look at ways to increase the number of trees on private and public land.
The State Government’s Draft 30-Year Plan for Greater Adelaide outlined a target to increase tree-canopy cover by 20 per cent across metropolitan Adelaide by 2045.
The government introduced laws in 2011 to allow the removal of some trees which were previously deemed as “significant” — meaning many with a trunk circumference of 2m or more no longer needed council approval to be chopped down.