Government’s plan to plant one million trees by 2022
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian launched an ambitious plan to plant one million trees across Sydney by 2022 this morning.
The NSW Government plans to green up Sydney’s open spaces by planting one million trees in the next three years.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Planning Minister Rob Stokes kicked off the tree planting with excited schoolchildren at Heydon Park in Rosemeadow this morning.
The program is part of a larger plan to plant five million trees across the city by 2030.
“We want to see a greener Sydney, we want to see a greener NSW and today we start our mission to plant a million trees by 2022,” Ms Berejiklian said.
“Not only do trees help green our environment but they provide oxygen but also they provide really important shade especially here in Western Sydney during those summer months when tree canopy ensures that we have cooler temperatures.”
Ms Berejiklian said the government wanted open spaces available to local residents across Sydney within a five to ten minute walk.
Mr Stokes said the program would benefit people across the city.
“We’re starting right here at Heydon Park by planting a couple of species of eucalypt that are local to this area that will be one part of demonstrating the benefits of increasing our urban tree canopy to our environment, to our community by making sure there are more pleasant places for people to get together,” he said.
Campbelltown mayor George Brticevic said the council was delighted to see the program launch in the local area.
“Rosemeadow is a suburb is nearly 40 years, it has a great tree canopy but also you can see a couple of trees nearing the end of their life cycle so it’s time to re-green the area … we’re real excited to be part of this project,” he said.
Cr Brticevic said south western Sydney suffered from the urban heat effect and welcomed any initiative to cool local suburbs.
“We don’t get to the sea breezes that the eastern suburbs do so we have to do something,” he said.
“I went out with UNSW researcher Dr Riccardo Paolini a while back and saw first hand the variance in temperatures at Macarthur Heights near here.
“On a 40 degree day there was a 15 degree variance underneath the big eucalypt tree.”
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