Event description

Save Our Canopy Trees Forum – A free public event.

Are you concerned about the steady loss of tree canopy in Whitehorse and would like to do something about it?

Come along to our special forum on 1st April 2023 at the Nunawading Community Hub. We have some excellent speakers lined up, including Dr Greg Moore OAM, chair of the National Trust of Victoria's Register of Significant Trees committee and a senior research associate at University of Melbourne, (Ecosystem and Forest Sciences), Burnley Campus.

It will be an opportunity for you to have your say on what can be done in Whitehorse to improve tree protection and halt the decline in our tree canopy and to encourage full funding and implementation of the City of Whitehorse Urban Forest Strategy.

Note:

1. Plenty of parking is available off Springvale Road.
2. Register at desk by 1.15 and be seated for a 1.30 start.

Purpose

To help residents better understand the huge advantages of urban forest and the negative impacts of tree and understory destruction on private and public land.
To introduce residents to the City of Whitehorse Urban Forest Strategy.
To better understand the mechanisms which lead to excessive overdevelopment and removal of tree canopy and biodiversity.
To give voice to citizens and to prepare resolutions for state government and council for change.

Key Questions

What is the value of trees to families, the community & economy: The well-known and the not-so-well known; e.g. 36 Councils across Melbourne have prepared an Urban Forest Strategy.
There is a disconnect between the rhetoric of Government and the declining tree canopy across Whitehorse and Melbourne`s urban spread; e.g. Plan Melbourne states …” Melbourne needs to maintain and enhance its urban forest of trees and vegetation on properties”.
What is the State Government doing that contributes to the declining canopy and Urban Forest?
What is State Government not doing to protect and grow the Urban Forest?
What more can the State Government do? Achievable actions from participants & motions carried.
What is the City of Whitehorse doing to protect and grow the Urban Forest?