Tree Policy

Purpose

Trees comprise a large component of Canberra’s garden city and urban forest.  Well developed maintenance programs for public trees are important for maintaining tree health and ensuring that public safety is not compromised.  This policy outlines current directions for the management and maintenance of trees on public urban land in Canberra.

Background

As an agency of the Department of Territory and Municipal Services, Parks, Conservation and Land is responsible for the management and maintenance of all trees growing on unleased urban Territory Land, including suburban street and major road nature strips and medians, and in parks and landscaped open spaces in Canberra.

The objectives of urban tree management are to enhance the landscape setting for the city, to maintain a safe and sustainable urban forest and to conserve the natural environment.

This management responsibility includes:

• Ensuring that trees in high use urban areas are regularly inspected for hazards that could pose a risk to public safety.

• Ensuring that trees are routinely pruned with the aim of protecting public utlities, enhancing public safety and urban amenity, and improving or maintaining tree health.

• Carrying out major tree surgery work as required.

• Carrying out remedial tree surgery and the removal of fallen or broken timber following storm events.

• Ensuring that dead and dying or dangerous trees are removed and replaced with tree species that give expression to the original landscape design intent.

• Ensuring that groups of trees, including urban plantations, are thinned and pruned to reduce the risk of fire and to improve tree health.

Parks, Conservation and Land Management aims to practice whole of life-cycle management of the trees under its care.  Whole of life-cycle management of trees means monitoring a tree from planting to maturity and finally when a tree becomes too old and is no longer viable from a hazard prevention or aesthetic perspective, arranging for its removal and replacement. 

Tree Management Practice

Parks, Conservation and Land approach toward tree management is to plan, maintain and replace.

1. Planning

• Management Planning

Management of trees in public open space in the ACT is guided by the objectives and policies set out in relevant Plans of Management, Master Plans and the Strategic Bushfire Management Plan.  Tree management and landscape refurbishment activities are consistent with these plans.

• Species and Site Selection

The urban forest of Canberra includes a diverse range of tree species horticulturally suitable to the city’s environment and climate. The Design Standards for Urban Infrastructure - volumes 22 ( PDF 325Kb) and 23 ( PDF 2.5Mb) provide a diverse list of species suitable for use in public landscaping. Plants used in public landscaping are generally selected from this list. Diversity in species selection is encouraged and improved cultivars and recently introduced species and varieties are evaluated and incorporated into urban tree planting programs from time to time.

2. Maintenance

Trees in the urban forest are maintained in five ways:

• Inspection

Trees in the urban areas of Canberra are inspected periodically from ground level to monitor tree health and identify potential hazards.  Trees in high use areas such as town or district parks and shopping centres are inspected every 1 to 2 years. When a member of the public is concerned about the safety or health of a particular tree on public land, a site visit is arranged.

Inspecting trees regularly ensures that structural defects and/or other risk factors are identified and dealt with in a timely and targeted manner.   

• Pruning

Priority is given to trees in areas of high public use, such as streets, car parks, shopping centres and picnic areas.  Formative pruning of young trees is carried out in the first five years following planting. Multiple leaders on young trees are removed or reduced when they are considered to be a potential future hazard. Trees are pruned to avoid interference with power lines, street signs, street lights and other services. Lower branches up to a height of 3 to 5 metres may be removed in order to give clear pedestrian and traffic access and clear sight lines, particularly for vehicles entering and leaving driveways, or approaching intersections. On main roads and major streets, lower branches are removed to a maximum height  of 5m. To minimise hazards caused by wind and rain, thinning of tree crowns may be carried out. Trees are shaped by shortening heavy limbs and general pruning to give a balanced weight distribution in the tree framework. Dead, diseased, cracked, hollow or otherwise unsound wood is removed. All tree surgery work will be carried out by qualified staff.

• Watering

Trees are watered to ensure their establishment and survival.  Trees under three years of age in non-irrigated areas are watered monthly from January to May or as specified by Parks, Conservation and Land Management.  During unusually dry weather, trees may receive additional water.

Residents are urged to water young trees in their neighbourhood to help them become established in the landscape.  This assists in the continuation of Canberra’s urban forest.

• Spraying

Tree selection and management aims to minimise the use of pesticides. Tree species are selected on the basis of their resistance to pests and diseases. Trees are only treated with pesticides during the establishment period (1 to 3 years). In any case trees greater than 5 metres in height are not sprayed and Eucalypt species are not sprayed specifically for the control of sawfly larvae.

• Removal

 A strongly conservative policy is adopted towards the removal of live trees on public land.

Trees are removed where:

-         they are dead, damaged or in irreversible decline;

-         they constitute a traffic hazard or other identifiable hazard to public safety which cannot be corrected by pruning; or

-         if they are interfering with above or below-ground services such as power lines or water pipes and the problem is likely to require repeated remedial action.

Trees are considered for removal where:

-         the tree is an unsuitable species for where it is planted, such as poplars and willows near storm water lines, or is in conflict with the design intent of the landscape;

-         if it is a part of a dense planting which requires thinning to promote the health of the remaining trees; or

-         if they were designated as temporary in the original landscape design and have reached the end of their intended life span.

Trees will not be removed for reasons such as:

-         householder preference for no street tree or for a different species;

-         complaints about appearance (unless these are related to very poor tree health);

-         complaints about leaf litter or twigs; or

-         complaints relating to tree roots protruding above the ground or competing with lawns.

If it is necessary to remove individual living trees from nature strips, regardless of whether the tree was planted by the ACT Government or the householder, the householder will be consulted as to the reasons why the tree is to be removed. Where a group of trees are to be removed the level of consultation will be more extensive.

Where the removal of a street tree is necessitated for reasons associated with a redevelopment of a block it will be replaced with a new tree of an appropriate species in a similar location.

3. Replacement

Tree replacement is an important part of the maintenance of Canberra’s public landscape.  The timely replacement of dead or missing trees in newly developed landscapes, regular replacement of established trees, and replanting programs that follow the removal of ageing trees not only ensures that the original landscape design intent is initially achieved but also retained for future generations.  Parks, Conservation and Land Management encourages the community to become involved with the establishment and care of new trees in their neighbourhood.

Where trees are identified and/or scheduled for replacement, every effort is made to consult with the community about the reasons for replacement.

• Young trees

Trees are planted at the rate of at least one street tree per residential frontage in new suburbs.  This ensures that formal streetscapes are established as the city grows.  Depending on the availability of funding, missing trees are replaced with the same or similar species as originally planted.  Residents are encouraged to monitor and care for young trees on their nature strip to maximise survival rates.

• Ageing trees

Ageing trees in parks and streetscapes are subject to strategic tree replacement programs.  Parks and streets where aging trees need to be removed and replaced are identified and subject to funding, these sites are included on the annual tree replacement program.  This ensures that the original landscape design intent is retained for future generations.  Local residents are informed of the reasons for the replacement of street trees and consulted to ensure that their wishes are taken into consideration.

• Routine Tree Replacement

Trees in parks or streets that have been removed for the reasons above or are missing are recorded and routinely replanted in a later planting season.  This procedure ensures that the original landscape design intent is retained as plants mature.