Green Adelaide Podcast
Do you want or have a career in South Australia’s environmental sector? Then this podcast is for you!
Green Adelaide Podcast
Ep 13: w/ Alison Collins | Adelaide's Urban Greening Strategy + urban planner + enhancing tree canopy + cooling urban areas + fostering biodiversity + LiDAR technology + green roofs and walls + climate change adaptation
To kick of season 2 we are talking about a new pathway to change Adelaide’s tree trajectory. It’s Adelaide first metro-wide Urban Greening Strategy.
Have your say: greenadelaide.sa.gov.au/projects/adelaide-greening-strategy
Consultation open between 30 April and 28 June 2024.
On behalf of the South Australian Government, we at Green Adelaide, released the draft strategy for consultation on 30 April to increase metropolitan Adelaide’s tree canopy, cool the city and boost biodiversity.
This metro-wide Urban Greening Strategy will be used to bring together government, councils, non-government organisations, industry peak bodies, research institutions, Kaurna and the broader community to deliver practical greening actions that will help achieve a more liveable city.
For this episode we are joined by Alison Collins to chat about the strategy. She is an urban planner with passion and expertise in creating more liveable, greener and water sensitive neighbourhoods.
Alison has more than 20 years of experience in a wide range of state government, local government and private sector roles and currently she is Green Adelaide’s Team Leader of Planning, and she led the development the draft Urban Greening Strategy currently out for public consultation.
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You can't rush collaboration and it does take working together over a long period of time and building relationships. And that's not something you're taught at university, because when you start a strategy, it is a long process and along the way you do go, is it ever going to be finished.
Melissa Martin:You are listening to the Green Adelaide podcast. Welcome to the first episode of season two. I'm your host, melissa Martin, and to kick off this season, we are talking about the new roadmap to change Adelaide's tree trajectory. It's Adelaide's first metro-wide urban greening strategy On behalf of the South Australian Government. We at Green Adelaide released the draft strategy last month to increase metropolitan Adelaide's tree canopy, cool the city and boost biodiversity. This metro-wide strategy will be used to bring together government councils, non-government industry, peak bodies, research institutions, ghana and the broader community to deliver practical greening actions that will help achieve a more liveable city. For this episode, we are joined by Alison Collins to chat about the strategy. She is an urban planner with a passion and expertise in creating more liveable, greener and water sensitive neighbourhoods. Alison has more than 20 years of experience in a wide range of government and private sector roles and currently she is in Green Adelaide and she is the team leader of planning and she led the development of the draft urban greening strategy, currently out for public consultation.
Alison Collins:Thanks for joining us today, ali, thanks Mel, thanks for having me.
Melissa Martin:Before we dive into the ins and outs of the urban greening strategy, let's get to know you and your career a bit better. Can you tell us how you ended up today in your role and how you got into the environmental industry?
Alison Collins:So, as you mentioned, I'm a town planner, but I actually started with a degree in environmental management and spent about five or six years working in travel demand management programs and they were at a number of different sort of local councils and originally the Conservation Council, and they were all about encouraging people to be able to cycle, walk, catch public transport to wherever they were going, whether it was their local school, their workplace.
Alison Collins:And while I really enjoyed those roles, what I found really interesting was, I guess, how cities operate and the importance of the shape of the city, whether you've got local destinations to walk and cycle to, whether or not you've got enough population density to support more public transport, and so it really got me thinking about a bit of a career change.
Alison Collins:And so subsequently I did a master's in urban and regional planning and that sort of coincided around the time I had my first child I guess it was a bit of a transition point Went on to do about 15 years in town planning through working up at Mount Barker Council and then subsequently a decade in the planning department, and it came back again and again about the livability of our communities. I was lucky to have a role that was funded by the health department, and that was all about things that you could do in land use planning, whether it was affordable housing, open space planning. I was lucky to lead the 27 update to the 30-year plan amongst other projects, and loved it. But then Green Adelaide happened, which was something that was, I guess, a new sort of organisation in terms of a real focus on the environment, and I looked at the job ad and I said that's the job for me. It really brings together town planning experience, but also that environmental experience as well.
Melissa Martin:And in your field, where you're kind of in two industries, how would you define success?
Alison Collins:Oh, that's a really interesting question. In my career I've always worked in reform areas, so I've often worked in roles where I've been working in a council or worked in a state government agency, but the funding for the position has often come from an external area. And even when I started my career at the Conservation Council, the funding for the position came from the National Australian Greenhouse Office. When I worked in travel, behaviour change management, the funding came from the transport department and so on, and so that question of what success is it's always been something that I've actually had to define in every role. I've often been in roles where they haven't had that type of role before.
Alison Collins:Green Adelaide is a similar role, and I guess it's always important to talk to all the sort of key people that you'll be working with and really try and define it. But you've also got to be comfortable to know that you can't make everyone happy, and I've often found that really tricky, because success looks different to different people and it depends on the area you're working at, the maturity of the conversation, whether you're introducing and floating a new concept and idea like biodiversity-sensitive design, which is something that Green Adelaide is working on at the moment, or whether it's something that is much more mature, like what is that firm design that's been around a lot longer. So I guess it's always important to try and define it and have some sort of way to evaluate it, but also recognise that there will always be a diversity of opinions, but that can also make it exciting as well.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, so I guess part of success is being able to define just success, yeah, and getting everyone else, I guess, aware of what success could look like.
Alison Collins:Yeah, and I guess, just thinking about tree canopy. Obviously there's been a huge amount of work over this last sort of 10 years about how do you actually define the different technologies that have been used. Those have changed since you know, back in 2014,. It was iTreeCampy. At the time, it was quite sort of a coarse data set. We've now got LiDAR. We're able to be much more sophisticated and nuanced.
Alison Collins:There are types of ways to measure. Yeah, there are types of measurements. So LiDAR is a remote sensing technique and it's something that government and local government have been working together on over the last sort of four or five years. We've just done a second recapture to see how tree canopy is performing, but of course there are many sort of causal factors about why tree canopy grows or changes of causal factors about why tree canopy grows or changes. So they are always only just an indication. But of course there's always continuous improvement in this area and that's why it makes it quite an interesting area to work in.
Melissa Martin:Let's dive a bit more into your role as an urban planner. For our listeners who maybe are not in that realm, can you just explain a little bit about what does an urban planner do?
Alison Collins:Well, there's lots of different roles. If you do the degree in urban and regional planning, there's lots of different career paths that you can take. That's probably the more classic. You're assessing plans that are coming in for someone building a new house or a new type of development and you're assessing against the rules in what is now the planning and design code and previously was development plans. But there's also other roles. There's transport planning. There's also strategic planning, where you're looking at where new growth can happen.
Alison Collins:That's, for example, the Great Adelaide Regional Plan that's under development at the moment. There's a lot of planners working on that to go well, where's our new residential land going to be? How are we going to make sure that it's the right infrastructure to provide for it? It's also about which areas of the city are you looking to protect, and so you've got the EFPA, which is looking at protecting McLaren Vale and Rossa Valley, so protecting our environmental assets. So it's both trying to encourage growth in areas that it's needed, but also, of course, protecting what's really trying to encourage growth in areas that it's needed, but also, of course, protecting what's really important to the community.
Melissa Martin:Do you have any advice for people who want to maybe follow that kind of career path or are thinking about doing urban planning or have done urban planning and want to expand it to more the environment? They see a demand in that sector. Do you have any advice to them to get started on their career?
Alison Collins:I always think it's when you're doing your study. It's always important to do some sort of work experience in areas that you find interesting, because I think it's only when you do that do you really understand what the role is. I must admit I've kind of fallen into the roles that I've been involved with, but that's often because you see a job advertised and it really speaks to you. I was lucky with sort of changing professions that I guess they are quite aligned. So doing planning as a postgrad is good in terms of you are drawing on a whole lot of experience from your undergraduate or previous experience. In terms of advice, I think it's just earlier in your career getting experience in lots of different areas.
Alison Collins:I have spent the last sort of 14 years in state government but earlier in my career I did move around a lot. I worked three different local councils, both Adelaide Council in the city, but also Peri-Urban in terms of Mount Barker Council, as well as Mitcham Council, which is more in the metropolitan area. But I also went to the Conservation Council, which was a really good grounding in the beginning. I've also worked for private consultancies as well. So I think when you're young it's good to get lots of experience and sort of work out where your best fit is.
Melissa Martin:And what do you love about urban planning?
Alison Collins:What I really like about it is I think you're really making a contribution to where you live is.
Alison Collins:So it's about community good, so you're really trying to make a positive change to how people live their lives. But you've also got to be aware that it's only one aspect. There's so many other things that need to come together, so it's an opportunity to really look at the diversity of viewpoints. A key thing that planners do is they ask questions about how things should change or not change and then really try and listen to all the different stakeholder groups whether it's the community, whether it's industry, peak bodies, other government agencies, councils and really try and find essentially the middle ground to kind of move things forward. So what can be challenging is often you want things to move a lot more quickly than they do and that can be a bit frustrating. But sometimes you look back 10 years and you can see how far things have come. So I've personally found that quite challenging and I know that a lot of people do is you feel like things are moving very slowly and then sometimes there's this big push forward and that's very exciting.
Melissa Martin:Urban planner and a town planner the same thing.
Alison Collins:Yeah, it is. It's really called, I guess, urban and regional planning, but it's like most things, there's always town plan is also a term that's used, but yeah, is urban planning the new term? Well, the degree itself is called urban and regional planning. Okay, but often town planning is used as well, but there's no like town planning degree.
Melissa Martin:Okay, yeah, maybe it's just one of those nice terms that people like to use and they haven't transitioned to urban? Yeah, exactly that people like to use and they haven't transitioned to urban? Yeah, exactly Now we'll jump into our rapid fire round. So in this round I'll ask you 10 random questions. It's pretty much this or that, what's your favourite, and it's just to take us out of the topic for a little bit to get to know you a little bit better and a bit differently, no problem, all right, we'll get started.
Melissa Martin:First question Okay, if you had to change your first name, what would you change it to?
Alison Collins:I yeah, I definitely would probably change Alison. You know what's funny is, I was thinking Joanna, but that was my sister's name, and when I was a kid we always wanted to change names. So you just take your sister's name. I don't know what she'd think of that.
Melissa Martin:What is your favourite movie genre?
Alison Collins:I don't know. I like lots of different things. I do like romantic comedies, but I like I don't know. That's a hard one. I like lots of different things. Rom-com Is that what you're going to say? I'm going to go with that.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, describe your style in one word.
Alison Collins:Gosh, you're making these questions hard. I'd say pretty relaxed generally speaking, what dish do you cook best? I make a really good minestrone soup.
Melissa Martin:Do you have a hidden talent?
Alison Collins:No.
Melissa Martin:What time do you usually wake up? In the morning.
Alison Collins:Mornings are not my friend, so I'd say I like to get up by seven, but I usually don't want to.
Melissa Martin:Who was your favourite Disney character?
Alison Collins:Oh, I don't know. Probably yeah, no, I don't really have a favourite Disney character.
Melissa Martin:Who? What were you afraid of as a child? Snakes, morning or night Night? Yeah, definitely. What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
Alison Collins:It's probably like chicken legs when I worked in Vietnam many years ago.
Melissa Martin:Legs, not feet.
Alison Collins:Yeah, legs and feet.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, that was feet, Legs and feet. Yeah.
Alison Collins:Yeah, that was one and only time.
Melissa Martin:And that's the end of our rapid fire round. Thank you, no worries. Now let's jump to the basics of the urban greening strategy. Ali, for the basics of the strategy, what is it? And when I create the document is what we'll dive into now. To start off with, what does the term urban greening mean?
Alison Collins:So, urban greening is trees and all other types of plants in an urban area and there's lots of opportunities within an urban area to get more trees and other types of vegetation. It's across in our private gardens, but also along our streets, it's along our rivers, it's obviously our parks and gardens. There's also those vertical spaces and those rooftop gardens. So it's, I guess, both in the sort of private realm but also in the public realm and there's lots of different opportunities.
Melissa Martin:And I guess how you mentioned the more alternative type of greenery. Maybe when people think about greenery they think of like a big park, so it feels like you need lots of space in an urban area. That feels impossible because people need to live somewhere. What types of alternative greening spaces do you think really work in our kind of temperature in South Australia?
Alison Collins:So, in terms of this work, there's kind of two key areas where there's opportunities for improvement.
Alison Collins:One is, as you have more sort of new development going into existing urban areas, so you're getting smaller allotments, there's also bigger houses, how do we still fit in those really big mature trees that are so important both to shading but also creating habitat?
Alison Collins:But it's also, how do we actually get more of the sort of the mid and understory, which is also really important for a lot of those sort of native birds and animals that really need that type of environment to survive? In terms of there's lots of different areas probably where we're not seeing as good outcomes in those things. One is new developments that are coming in, coming in, but also in streetscapes. How do we actually get more vegetation that is still easy to look at, still fits in with some of those other constraints that you have in an urban environment, whether it's power lines, but also all of those underground services and, as you can imagine, it is quite a constrained environment in the urban area. So that's the reason why good design and really being mindful has been really important, and I guess that's the reason why urban greening strategies are important.
Melissa Martin:So in regards to urban greening and I guess those alternative kind of greening options like green roofs and green walls, can you see more of that stuff just based on our temperature and climate here, more of that kind of alternative greening, be better used across the city.
Alison Collins:Yeah, it's interesting because we do have good examples of green walls and green roofs. If you go down to Adelaide Zoo, for example, they've got a number of different green walls and they've also got significant sort of green roofs. If you go to Argo Cafe on Nord Parade, that's just one I know where they've got a really beautiful sort of green wall that creates a really lovely environment. So we do have good examples, but they do need to be well designed for an Adelaide climate, just to make sure that there's enough water and things like that. So there's opportunity to do more in that space. But we are obviously moving towards a semi-arid environment, so water and making sure they're really well designed is going to be really important for them to work in an Adelaide context.
Melissa Martin:Yeah, so it's a good point how we're moving towards a semi-arid environment, because I believe the belief is that Adelaide was Mediterranean climate. How have we changed climate from Mediterranean to semi-arid?
Alison Collins:Yeah, it's interesting because obviously we're hoping to grow our canopy to make sure that as a city we can respond to this warming climate. But I guess we've got a whole stream of work in this urban greening strategy about how's our current urban forest going to respond to this change in climate. We've got a whole lot of existing trees and vegetation, which is often from all over Australia or to the risks of pests that potentially move in with some of these changes in climate. It is well recognised that our climate is warming and it's likely that we may move to more of a sort of a Port Augusta sort of environment in due course. So I guess this is the reason why it is a priority for us at the metropolitan scale to go. How would we respond to it? How resilient is our urban forest and what is the research or trials that we need to take to make sure that we're in a really good spot to be able to transition our urban environment?
Melissa Martin:And an urban greening strategy, which I think is the same as an urban forest strategy. Same things, maybe different terms for them. What is it and what's the purpose of it?
Alison Collins:Yeah, you're right, there's lots of different things we could have called this strategy, and you'll see, when we were tasked with this job of coordinating state government is. Our first step was to go what type of urban greening strategy would be most useful, because this is not a legislated strategy. It's not defined in terms of what it can do. So what we did is we really listened to all the different inquiries that have happened over recent years to understand the type of issues that were potentially holding us back in terms of growing our tree canopy, and we also did a whole lot of engagement with all the different organisations that are involved in either sort of delivering urban greening influence or even are very interested in it. So really heard back that having a strategy which identified shared work where people could collaborate was a really important role that the strategy could take.
Alison Collins:So this is not just what Green Adelaide would deliver or other government agencies, but it's where there's particular gaps that needed to be filled or also help maybe scale up, where work, for example, in one council could be scaled up across the region, but also where there's opportunities for collaboration and co-investment. So a good example of the type of project that we're talking about is a number of state government agencies and all of the metropolitan councils worked together to recapture urban heat and tree canopy data in 2022. And that took small bits of money from multiple organisations and together we've created a sort of a consistent sort of data in terms of understanding how our landscape is performing in that area. So we're hoping to get other types of those sort of projects up, but, of course, that will be shaped through listening to our consultation that's out at the moment and looking at where the sort of key things that we'll work on together. So I guess, in a nutshell, this is about where are the shared pieces of work across the region where we can really maximise our impact by working together.
Melissa Martin:And I know that other cities nationally and globally, and maybe more locally, perth and Tassie, have urban greening strategies or urban forest strategies. Is it a trend now for cities to start doing this Like why do you think more cities are deciding? Well, we better make a strategy to target greening. Why?
Alison Collins:now it's probably because obviously there's continuing urbanisation obviously not just in Adelaide but elsewhere and when you've got lots of changes in the urban environment it can become tricky to fit in those big trees and other types of greening. When we introduced the urban green cover target to 30-year plan back in 2017, there wasn't actually another target at that stage, but since then, right across Australia, you see a huge amount of work in this area and I know that in terms of similar types of documents, you've had Living Melbourne for quite a few years. That has a similar approach of working across, uh, different sectors, um, but I guess it's also because Living.
Alison Collins:Melbourne is a strategy. Living Melbourne is also an urban greening strategy in Melbourne which works with multiple partners. So that's an example. I think that that was introduced a few years ago now and it's well underway. But probably the other thing I'd say is it's well recognised now that trees and other types of greenery have just so many benefits. I think that's pretty much about any dispute that. Whether it's the economic value of trees in terms of your house, or whether it's obviously air quality, whether it's actually cooling, whether it's about its biodiversity elements, it's a bit of a silver bullet. So people are going, we recognise it, we want more of this and it's a bit of a silver bullet. So people are going, we recognise, we want more of this and it's really important, but in an urban environment you obviously have to be really mindful about how we're actually going to achieve it.
Melissa Martin:One of the struggles maybe with developing an urban greening strategy is that there's so many different elements at play. So you've got housing people need more housing, but more housing takes up more land and then you've got all this infrastructure to support people living in a city which you know it's all competing. What do you think is the silver bullet to work through that kind of issues in a strategy?
Alison Collins:Yeah, you're right and, to be honest, that really sums up what a town planner does is how do you actually get the balance between all of those competing priorities? So, yes, this is a strategy about urban greening, but we have to be mindful that it's something that is balanced with a whole lot of other things, and so that's why you see real emphasis in the strategy about trying to tackle some of those things, because all of them, through good design or well, lots of consideration, we can see better outcomes. So you you do see examples of people building houses on small allotments but still making really good use of really small spaces. But again, none of these things automatically happen unless there's some focused attention on it, because there are some good reasons why it's tricky to do so. We're confident that we can get better outcomes, but of course, those sort of things don't happen unless there's actually people and time spent on resolving them.
Melissa Martin:Great. Now we'll dive into the data and actions in the strategy. So we know that metropolitan Adelaide has almost 17% tree canopy cover, but this isn't evenly distributed across our suburbs, and so we are long off achieving the 30% tree canopy cover target, which is a widely accepted level to achieve multiple benefits. Ali, within the strategy you mentioned the six priority areas. Can you talk about what they are, what the priority areas are of the strategy?
Alison Collins:So yeah, based on all that sort of investigation and consultation during development strategy, we're putting forward six priority areas for action. The first one is cooler and greener infill development. So infill development is really about new housing. So it's an existing allotment which is subdivided into two or three or maybe even four new housing. This can cause challenges for keeping mature trees and other greening, because often you've got a much smaller allotment and also there's a real trend towards larger houses than we've had in the past. So this is a really important area of work where we're trying to balance the benefits of more housing close to shops and services in existing areas, but also making sure that we keep all of those elements of a cool and leafy environment that people are hoping to achieve. So that's things like improving policy in the planning system. It's also about making it easier for developers to meet sort of minimum standards, but also go beyond that, and that's in terms of planting new trees.
Alison Collins:The second one is government leading by example.
Alison Collins:So this is one where it's really important that the public realm and that's things like our streets and our parks, really play a really important role, because people now have often small or no front or back gardens. So the public realm is a really important part of an urban environment that needs good tree canopy and other greenery, and state and local government also always have an important role to identify and showcase innovative solutions. And there's also a whole lot of barriers to overcome in terms of infrastructure conflicts for power lines and underground services and also making sure that we can undertake maintenance in a sort of cost-effective way. So this is a metropolitan plan, so we're working with all of the sort of government agencies that own land and are doing projects such as the transport department, renewal SA that releases land, releases schools, the health department that upgrades and builds new hospitals and other medical facilities, and we're obviously looking at government systems and processes. So that's a really sort of important priority for us to work on medical facilities and we're obviously looking at government systems and processes. So that's a really sort of important priority for us to work on.
Alison Collins:The third one is building nature back in, and this is really important because cities are increasingly recognised for their important role in supporting biodiversity, and a key part of this is supporting the concept of biodiversity sense of urban design and biodiversity sense of design is about creating built environments that make a positive on-site contribution to biodiversity, while also meeting other urban greening and development outcomes. So it's not just any type of greening, it's also looking for opportunities where we can plant trees or other vegetation that really target animals or birds that we're hoping to attract.
Melissa Martin:What's an example of biodiversity-sensitive urban design?
Alison Collins:So a good example is planting along a street or a verge where you might be particularly trying to attract a particular animal or bird. So you're being really mindful about what you're planting.
Alison Collins:But also, if you're building a new development, it's also not just vegetation. It's thinking about things like bird-friendly glass, so that it's particularly angled so you don't fly into it. There's wildlife-friendly lighting, so that the lighting is more conducive to animals. It's also thinking about the resources that are particularly needed to encourage animals and birds to come to a particular area. So it's yeah, it's about those sorts of considerations. So it's not just about planting for calling or amenity, but also thinking about what the target animal birds are needed.
Melissa Martin:So the first three are around infill, development, government systems and processes and, I guess, building green space, that is, for wildlife. What are the next three?
Alison Collins:So the third one is future-proofing our urban forest and this, I guess, is really focused on the fact that climate change is already impacting the sustainability of our urban forest, which is largely comprised of a small number of plant families with varying tolerances to the projected warming and drying that we're likely to experience. So it's really important, I guess, to increase the diversity of our urban forest to ensure climate resilience, as well as to ensure that we've got adequate water to make sure it supports thriving and healthy growth. So this one is about increasing our understanding of the types of plants that are likely to survive in a warming climate. So it's about research and trials, but it's also building capacity and understanding and delivering water sense of urban design and making it become business as usual.
Alison Collins:The fourth one is improving greening equity. This is important because we know the importance for the community to be able to see trees and other vegetation from wherever they are, and that really increases health and well-being and productivity. But not everyone in Adelaide has access to urban green spaces and, in turn, the benefits they provide. So this one is really to about to identify how to best prioritise urban greening investment where it's needed most. If you look at some of the mapping that we have on our tree canopy viewer online, you can see that some areas of Adelaide are under 10% tree canopy, while other areas are up towards 60%, particularly if they've got national parks in their area. So I guess we're really keen to understand where we might best invest or prioritise urban greening investment. And also this one also looks at open space planning that's being undertaken to support the development of the new Great Adelaide Regional Plan. So I guess this is about, I guess, making sure that there's good access for everyone and the benefits are shared equally.
Alison Collins:The final priority is scaling up impact by working together. There's been a whole lot of action being undertaken by many different organisations. There's a huge amount of work being undertaken by local government, other government agencies and the community. So what we're looking at here is how can we actually scale up impact by working together at the metropolitan scale. So yeah, in a nutshell, those are our six priority areas and we're really interested through the consultation process. Have we got that right? Where do we have any gaps and also, where are our priorities for immediate action?
Melissa Martin:And I mentioned in the intro a little bit there around the 30% tree canopy cover target, which seems to be an accepted target for urban areas. Will Adelaide have a KPI like that for urban greening or is it going to be a little bit different?
Alison Collins:So at the moment, state government has a tree canopy target of a 20% increase of individual council baselines. So what does that mean? So that means so, for example, some councils have a tree canopy cover of about 10%, so that would be a 20% increase, but of course some councils are a lot higher than that. So what? This strategy?
Melissa Martin:does and is it sorry. Is it an increase to 20% or just a 20% on top of what they already have?
Alison Collins:A 20% on top of what they already have Now. This was introduced in the start of 2017. And at that time we weren't really sure how challenging that would be. We were initially going to introduce a 30% canopy cover target at that point, but that was deemed as too ambitious. So the 20% increase was introduced and it's really pleasing to see that our recent recapture shows that all metropolitan council have achieved that. So what we've got now is an opportunity to review that and look at ways to strengthen and fine-tune that target. So we've got a discussion paper out at the moment that proposes different ways that we might improve or strengthen that target, and we're really looking forward to seeing what comes out of the consultation process on that. We're also looking at introducing a report card or target in two other areas which would be new for Adelaide. One is on reducing urban heat intensity and the other one is improving tree species diversity.
Melissa Martin:So, with the targets of tree canopy cover, reducing heat intensity and increasing tree species diversity, is it to a percentage that we're trying to reach or is it some other type of measurement? And is it overall for metropolitan Adelaide or is it specific like you're mentioning before with council?
Alison Collins:So what we're proposing is to have a report card which looks at having different ranges based on.
Alison Collins:So, for example, over 30% would be seen as very good tree canopy, but under 10% would be considered low. So it allows people to really have a look at where they sit in that range. We're also proposing to have a new target, but we are proposing a few different options and seeing which resonates. So, for example, we are proposing to have a 30% tree canopy cover target for residential areas, and this recognises the fact that this is where canopy is most needed in our community to maximise health and wellbeing benefits. And of course, we don't need a 30% canopy target over areas where we don't want more canopy, and a good example would be things like an airport or agricultural land or even a sports field, because that would obviously be a big problem having to kick around a tree in the way. So I guess what I'm saying is we've learned a lot over the last five years and we've also got improved data to allow us to be much more nuanced and sophisticated about what we might need.
Melissa Martin:So we know that saving and increasing greenery in metropolitan Adelaide relies on not just a love for trees and green spaces, but also legislation, policy, capacity building and coordination to protect and enhance it, which is what the strategy brings together. So the Yosei engagement site has the draft urban greening strategy on there now for anyone to read, to have a look at and provide feedback on, and I'll add a link in the episode notes. Ali, is there a specific way that you want people to provide feedback on the strategy?
Alison Collins:Yeah, so if you go onto your say, we're taking feedback in a few different ways. There's an online survey if you want to just have a quick look through and give some feedback that way. We've got a poll. We're also inviting written submissions. We've got a poll, we're also inviting written submissions, and that can come either in the form of just an email or it could come in form of more of a sort of a written piece of work.
Melissa Martin:So it's really up to people how detailed they want to provide feedback, and the consultation is open until the end of June. Once it's closed, when will the strategy be finalised?
Alison Collins:So what usually happens when you finalise a strategy? First of all, we'll have a look at all the different submissions, understand where people are hoping to make changes, and so we'll obviously work hard to look at how we can improve the document and also work on the supporting implementation plan. This is always really important with a strategy. You can have a really beautiful document that sits on the shelf, but you do need someone or an organisation that actually coordinates and actually works with people to make it happen. So we are getting those sort of pieces in place at Green Adelaide. It's a new area for us in Green Adelaide. It's a new area for us in Green Adelaide, and so that will be really important. So, as well as the strategy, we will have an implementation plan, which is the types of initiatives that we hope to work together on. So that will really be crafted with working together with the different partners and seeing where investment and efforts is most needed.
Melissa Martin:We've reached the end of this episode. Thank you, ellie, but before I let you go, for our listeners who are new to the industry environmental industry that is what's one learning that you wish you knew when you started.
Alison Collins:I think it's, I would say, patience in terms of there's a whole lot of things that need to come together to get changes, and you can't rush collaboration. You really it does take time and it does take working together over a long period of time and building relationships and really working together on things. And that's not something you're taught at university, because when you start a strategy, it is a long process and along the way you do go, is it ever going to be finished and then is it going to be implemented? But that's what I've learned along the way you do go. Is it ever going to be finished and then is it going to be implemented? But that's what I've learned along the way.
Melissa Martin:Thanks, sally, for your time today. Appreciate it. Thanks, mel. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Green Adelaide podcast. This podcast is recorded on Kaurna land and I would like to pay my respects to the Kaurna people. Thank you to our special guest, alison Collins from Green Adelaide, for talking all about the Draft Urban Greening Strategy, which is out for consultation until the 28th of June, and you can provide your feedback on the strategy at the your Say site. This podcast is your insider scoop on all things cool, green and wild in metropolitan South Australia. I am your host, melissa Martin, and remember, subscribe to our podcast for the episode alert. I'll speak to you next month. Bye.