Our Urban Forest Strategy outlines our commitment to protecting, managing, and planting trees on public and private land. The Strategy aims to increase the municipal tree canopy cover from 12.5 per cent to 22 per cent by 2040.

Adopted in July 2021, our strategic vision is “The City of Glen Eira’s urban forest will be green, resilient and healthy, creating a liveable and sustainable City for current and future generations where trees and vegetation are a core element.”

This vision guides the following five action areas:

• maintain and protect Glen Eira’s public and private land urban forest;
• grow the future urban forest through designed solutions for trees and innovative green infrastructure on public and private land;
• adapt to climate change and reduce urban heat impacts through embedding leading practice urban forest management into Council’s decision-making, investment and processes;
• engage and collaborate across sectors with the community, developers and other agencies; and
• monitor and evaluate the progress of the urban forest, including progress towards targets.

These areas informed key actions to guide timelines and strategy implementation.

We have made the following investments to better protect and strengthen our natural assets:

• $1,330,000 for planting and replacing street and park trees;
• $1,730,000 for tree inspections; and
• $1,130,000 for tree risk and management.

In 2021–22 we planted 170 new canopy trees across Lord Reserve and Koornang Park. We selected a mix of small, medium and large trees to provide the best outcomes for canopy, amenity and biodiversity. The planting of these trees will increase the tree canopy at both locations by 45 per cent when the trees reach maturity.

We commenced drafting plans to further expand open space canopy cover, having scoped sites such as Moorleigh Community Village, Packer Park and Rosanna Reserve.

We also completed two new streetscapes in Elsternwick that involved the creation of tree planting pits. These have resulted in over 50 new trees added to locations that were devoid of tree canopy.

We planted 1,008 trees and created over 2,500 square metres of garden beds in 2021–22.