‘Green cover’ – including trees, shrubs, grasslands, and other vegetation.

Developing a strategy that will address our City's green cover will help us achieve a liveable and sustainable future.

As our population and housing growth increases, combined with the effects of climate change and urban heating, areas of our City are experiencing 'hotspots' or 'heat islands' where temperatures are higher than average. This impacts our wellbeing, productivity and our plants and animals.

Increased green cover, or ‘greening’, will help tackle this and create healthier ecosystems, reduce temperatures, provide more habitat for flora and fauna, and create more green spaces for people to use and enjoy.

Trees, in particular, provide the greatest lasting benefits including:

• Carbon storage, clean air and oxygen
• Shade, cooling and energy savings
• Wildlife habitat and reduction in erosion
• Places for community to gather and improve mental and physical wellbeing
• Beauty and character (impacting property prices)

Currently tree canopy covers just 19.7% of our City, with some suburbs like Donnybrook, Wollert, Epping, Lalor, Thomastown and Mernda having less than 10% tree canopy coverage. We also have large areas of rural pastures and dry grasslands.

The draft Strategy sets a target of increasing the tree canopy cover by 20%, to around 23-24% of the City, focusing on the areas that will have the greatest impact on liveability.

Informed by Whittlesea 2040, research, technical data, and community input gathered in late 2019, the draft ‘Greening Whittlesea Strategy’ (GWS) includes four key goals:

1. ‘Protect and Manage’ - Preserve existing trees and green cover on Council and non-council land.
2. ‘Enhance’ - Grow our tree population and green cover to achieve a 20% canopy increase for the city
3. ‘Engage’ - Inspire community support for the Greening Whittlesea Strategy and contribution towards achieving the shared strategic vision
4. ‘Built Environment’- Construct infrastructure that contributes to the greening of our city

It sets out to protect the trees and green cover we already have, increase the number of trees in areas that will have the greatest impact on future liveability (making sure they are the right trees, in the right places) and working with our community to make it happen (noting that 85% of land in Whittlesea is privately owned so we need your help).