By Tate Papworth
Brimbank council has endorsed a policy to make the west greener.
At its May meeting, the council endorsed Living Melbourne’s metropolitan urban forest strategy.
Living Melbourne aims to change the way people think about building, growing, and valuing Melbourne.
One of the key features of Living Melbourne is the mapping of existing canopy cover across Melbourne.
So far the mapping shows the west lags well behind Melbourne’s other suburbs.
Cr Daniel Allan said the numbers were alarming, but there’s scope for improvement.
“I was shocked to learn that the eastern suburbs have a canopy cover of 25 per cent. I looked at what we have in the west and it’s a dismal four per cent tree canopy cover,” he said.
“But there is hope. There’s six different actions, which gives us the hope. By 2030 it’ll go from 4 per cent to more than double that to 9 per cent.
“Ten years later, it’s projected to come up to 14 per cent and by 2050 it’s projected to be 20 per cent tree canopy cover.”
The council said endorsing the strategy ties in with other initiatives such as the Greening The West partnership.
