A group dedicated to “speaking for trees” says it will continue pressuring Adelaide councils into saving an estimated 75,000 of them from the axe each year, as a petrol station giant’s plan to remove two significant river red gums in the inner south is delayed.
Chevron Australia Downstream has applied to remove the trees from the Caltex petrol station on Belair Road, but the City of Mitcham has requested more information, which is likely to include a report from an independent arborist.
“Trees, especially big trees, are the best thing we have against the mitigation of a warming climate,” said Speak for the Trees member Jane Preston.
“We would like to see any development keep nurturing nature and protect trees and try and incorporate them into the build.”
A City of Mitcham spokesperson said an assessment about removing the “old significant trees” would be made once the council had received the extra information it had requested.
Speak for the Trees is a Conservation Council SA group, which has reported an estimated 75,000 trees are cut down across the Greater Adelaide area every year.
Ms Preston’s group recently protested against removing two old gum trees for the construction of a new ice rink in Marion.
The $20 million project was last month canned by the Pelligra Group, which cited a different commercial climate and higher construction costs than when it was first proposed in 2021.
Ms Preston said those trees were on the border of the block and could have been incorporated into its design as a “nature strip” but it was “all too hard”.
“It’s not about stopping development, it’s just about ensuring the development doesn’t negatively impact on nature,” she said.
Ms Preston said the group held “a lot of rallies” to pressure councils and the state government into preserving trees, with the latter “changing and strengthening the tree laws” in May.
Tree protections increased
The state government reduced the trunk size for regulated trees from two metres down to one, and from three metres to two for significant trees, with only 30 per cent of their canopies allowed to be removed every five years.
It also reduced exemptions based on distances from homes and swimming pools from 10 metres to three, and increased fines for destroying or removing a regulated or significant tree from $326 to $1,000 and from $489 to $1,500 respectively.
“The community no longer wants to see these big trees cut down. The trees don’t have a voice so we’re trying together to give them a voice and effect change,” Ms Preston said.
Green Adelaide is a state government urban environmental organisation with a strategy to achieve 30 per cent canopy cover.
Board chairperson Professor Chris Daniels said 30 per cent was a “widely accepted level to achieve multiple health, liveability and economic benefits for urban areas”.
“Urban temperatures are predicted to increase, so it’s even more important that we grow a healthy and diverse urban forest to ensure that Adelaide stays liveable and cool,” he said.
He said Adelaide’s current canopy level was just 17 per cent.
‘Abysmal’ canopy cover
Jamie Arrizza was among those who recently protested at the Caltex site and labelled the state’s canopy cover as “quite abysmal”.
“[Canopy cover] is very important, obviously for the environment, but also to reduce heat sink effects in urban areas, which escalates global warming,” they said.
The protester said the significant trees at Caltex could be well over 100 years old and also provided hollows for native birds to nest.
“Tree hollows are not super-abundant. They only happen with old growth trees,” they said.
“This sulphur-crested cockatoo is actually nesting a lot lower than they tend to, which could indicate that there are less tree hollows that are available of a good size.”
Speak for the Trees is also concerned about a significant tree at the nine-storey Unley Central development to be built on the site of the Unley Road Target store and car park.
A City of Unley spokesperson said any proposal to remove a significant or regulated tree on private land “would be subject to the submission and assessment of a development application”.
“However, no such application has been lodged for tree removal on that site,” the spokesperson said.
Tree ‘poisoning’
Meanwhile, the City of Norwood Payneham and St Peters was investigating the suspected poisoning of a large gum tree on Magill Road.
The tree has about 20 drill holes in it and its leaves have turned brown.
Ms Preston said people often did not appreciate the importance of saving a single tree, equating one big tree with nearly 900 saplings in terms of drawing carbon from the atmosphere.
“There’s no way we can possibly plant that many trees to replace the benefits of one big tree,” she said.