Members statements
More Trees for a Cooler, Greener West
Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Early Childhood and Pre-Prep, Minister for Environment) (09:41): I recently had the pleasure of joining a number of colleagues from the other place – Sarah Connolly MP, Natalie Hutchins MP, Luba Grigorovitch MP and Mat Hilakari MP – at Ardeer South Primary School to launch phase 3 of the More Trees for a Cooler, Greener West initiative, our plan to plant 500,000 new trees in the west. With over 190,000 trees already planted across phases 1 and 2, phase 3 will see over 131,000 new trees planted in the west, and Ardeer South Primary School teachers and students have done a magnificent job. They planted over 1700 native plants during phase 2 of the program in spring last year, and it was great to see how many of those trees have already grown quite substantially.
This $2 million investment in phase 3 will see trees planted at 76 locations across six local government areas in the west, including Hobsons Bay, Maribyrnong, Brimbank, Melton, Moonee Valley and Wyndham. The Western Metropolitan Region has one of the lowest tree canopy covers in Melbourne, and by investing now in new trees outside schools, along trails, in parks and along residential streets we can create cooler and shaded spaces for local communities, improve the air quality, make the west more livable and combat climate change, helping to reach net zero emissions by 2045.