A former quarry provides a diverse set of micro-habitats supporting a wide range of flora and fauna (above) but the scattering of trees on a dry grass area no longer makes the grade (below).
Time to stop planning parks and
get into forests
Veteran recreation planner and consultant Ken Marriott believes it is time for government to reduce the undue focus on urban street tree and canopy planting and instead focus on urban and rural forests
I
t is now critical that all levels of government in Australia and New Zealand stop planning parks and get into re-establishing forest, woodland, grassland and marine reserve ecosystems. This is because even if our countries can reach net zero emissions by 2050, the volumes of CO2 and other gases already in the atmosphere are far too high and will continue to drive global warming unless these are substantially reduced, and at present, only vegetation can do that. Even though experimental plants have been established, the development of reliable, effective technological tools to capture and store climate change gases is still years away. Two types of technology are needed: carbon capture and storage (CCS), where CO2 is captured at the point of emission from industry, extraction sites and power stations prior to be being pumped underground, and the more critical direct air capture (DAC). DAC extracts CO2 and other climate change gases directly from the atmosphere. CCS stops more emissions while DAC helps to get rid of the existing excess. DAC can happen anywhere and it has been suggested that plants could be sited in non-arable areas where high solar rates would provide the power to operate them. In Australia, the Climate Council has estimated that in addition to stopping emissions, 12 billion tonnes of existing excess climate change gases need to be extracted from the atmosphere annually well into the foreseeable future. Experimental CCS and DAC plants are presently extracting somewhere around 4 million tonnes globally. As a consequence, our only realistic recourse at present are trees, other woody vegetation, grasslands and marine vegetation. This is highlighted by recent 54 Australasian Leisure Management Issue 148
ABC Australia reporting which indicated that DAC currently costs around $1,000 per tonne of gas extraction whereas tree planting costs around $30 per tonne. At present, there are not even experimental DAC plants in Australia. In light of the above, governments at all levels have to stop thinking about street tree and canopy plantings as the solution to climate change and urban heat islands. These might abate the immediate glare and heat of our weather and add to urban amenity and shading, but they do not address climate change and the high levels of maintenance they require may well add to the problem and distract attention from other more effective action. Urban and rural “forests” (regardless of the species) provide the opportunity to re-develop ecosystems that have the capacity to capture climate change gases and protect the vegetation that is planted. They also provide breathing space for technical CCS and DAC strategies. However, planting programs cannot see a continuation of the practice of scattering a few trees across informal parklands and mowing between them on a regular basis.. Climate change
