Christchurch's leafy status under threat, urgent action needed to protect city's tree canopy
From reporter Tina Law:
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New figures, released on Thursday by the Christchurch City Council, show 13.5 per cent of the city is covered by tree canopy, some 2 percentage points lower than in 2015-16, when it was 15.6 per cent.
However, the figures are based on data collected in 2018-19 and city councillor Yani Johanson suspects the actual tree loss now would be much greater, possibly double, given the number of trees that have been cut down to make way for housing intensification.
Auckland had a canopy coverage of 18.4 per cent between 2016 and 2018 and in Wellington the tree canopy covered about 30.6 per cent in 2019.
The lack of trees is most stark in some of Christchurch’s lowest socio-economic areas like Hornby and Linwood, sitting at 6.5 per cent and 8.9 per cent respectively. Banks Peninsula has not been included in the study.
Some of the city’s more affluent suburbs have the highest tree cover with Cashmere sitting at 21 per cent and Fendalton at 19 per cent. The Coastal ward, which stretches from Southshore to Brooklands, has 27 per cent coverage, but that includes Bottle Lake Forest. Continue reading here.
Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
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