by Carla Caruso

The National Trust of SA has put out an SOS call for Adelaide’s mature trees. 

As many as 75,000 such trees are being lost each year across metropolitan Adelaide.

Premier Steven Marshall has threatened hundreds more of them to build a proposed stadium in Helen Mayo Park. Proposed re-zoning of the Park Lands threatens more, and other recent changes to our planning rules are escalating the losses. 

The National Trust is inviting all South Australians to join them in protecting the greenery via a community-powered project, documenting the trees that we love, those at risk, and those that have been lost.

The not-for-profit organisation will launch a Save Our Trees website and mobile app at an event in North Adelaide from 5.00pm on Wednesday, December 1. (Registration is free.)

Dr Darren Peacock, the Trust’s chief executive, below, says the main contributors to mature tree loss are “private development and government road projects”.

“The planning and design code is just exacerbating the loss of trees and we need to make sure we document that, so we can lobby for better tree regulation.”

A report from Conservation SA’s Protect Our Trees campaign says: “We must … stop the loss of mature trees across our suburbs if we have any chance of increasing our urban canopy cover.”

“Although new tree planting is welcome and essential [to mitigate loss]:

• replacing an existing mature tree with one or even several young trees does not account for the many years of inadequate canopy cover as the trees grow,

• climate change is adversely affecting the ability of trees to grow and mature, emphasising the critical importance of already established trees, and

• there is simply not enough public space for councils to plant new trees to compensate for the loss of mature trees from backyards and other private land.”

The densifying urban form of Adelaide has resulted in 17 per cent of the local council areas being identified as ‘urban heat islands’ including the CBD.

The Trust is pushing for planning law reform, better valuation and incentives, improved assessment practices involving arborists, and stronger reinforcement of the community’s love of big trees.

On the Trust’s involvement, while many would associate it with architecture, Dr Peacock says: “We began with nature reserves rather than buildings … We’ve been in trees for a while.”

Its Adelaide City Explorer app features a self-guided Treasured Trees trail, highlighting some of the city’s grandest trees. 

The greenery was selected from its Significant Tree Register, which is maintained by the Trust and has been compiled over 30 years by volunteers. 

At the Save Our Trees campaign launch, the keynote speakers will include:

·      Paul Leadbeter, president, National Trust of South Australia

·      Craig Wilkins, chief executive, Conservation Council SA

·      Tom Morrison, Mitcham Council Young Australian of the Year, and

·      Joanna Wells, trees advocate.