Ben Kunze: Canning councillor slams State Government as council resorts to offering cash to protect trees

The State Government has been slammed for showing “no interest” in protecting Perth’s trees after a council resorted to offering a financial lure for people to keep them. The City of Canning voted in March to give property owners $200 a year for each significant tree that was retained under its new financial incentive policy. The policy came back to the council last month for fine-tuning, including who would be eligible, how many trees could be claimed and what works landowners receiving the payment will be able to do around the tree. City staff were asked to report back in a year on its take-up. Cr Ben Kunze hoped the revised policy would help protect the city’s significant trees and show other councils how to reduce the amount of tree loss as the State Government had “no interest” in doing so. “It’s been seven years since the State Government suspended the green growth plan which was later binned and nothing has been implemented in its stead to deal with clearing across Perth’s undeveloped land,” he said. “Without the legislative controls provided by the State Government, we at a local government level have little hope at preventing the clearing of mature significant trees, which is why it’s important that we actually look at innovative ways and initiatives like this.” After the meeting, he said the city was forecast to lose 34ha of tree canopy cover due to land clearing. “The current planning framework primarily focuses on providing new trees, as opposed to requiring the retention of significant trees on site, which is simply not sustainable,” Cr Kunze said. “The city is investing millions of dollars planting trees so that future generations may have these mature trees, and I hope that with the offer of a financial reward, local residents will help us protect what we already have.” Mayor Patrick Hall said at the meeting he had been “swayed” into supporting the policy after initially opposing it but still was not sure it would work. “I don’t know whether it’ll materially make a difference to the number of trees being retained,” he said. “But I’m prepared to support the recommendation because something must be done to arrest the wholesale removal of trees on private property. “I think probably the key to that is through incentives rather than punitive action. And I think if we can bring people along with us, voluntarily come along with us, I think we’re going to see some benefit.” Cr Michelle Hurn said it was “tinkering around the edges of a pretty dire situation,” but realised the city had practical and financial constraints. “We do have planning schemes and strategies in place that are inherently in conflict with the goal to retain and grow our tree canopy and we’ll continue to see further erosion in our tree canopy as we pursue higher-density living,” she said. “The projections in the motion of approximately 30 trees registered in three years seems to me a little bit like a distraction from the main game, but we don’t know until we give it a go.” Cr Joanne Page said the city was putting the money where its mouth was to encourage people to keep “these really big, beautiful, significant trees.” Planning and Lands Minister John Carey said the State Government welcomed “pragmatic policies” from local government as protecting the urban tree canopy needed effort from all parts of the community. He said government efforts included the $6.9 million Treebate program, $7.2m Tree Recovery Program, $10m for a new urban greening grants program and an urban greening strategy for Perth and Peel. “The new and improved urban tree canopy dashboard displays suburb-by-suburb information to help local governments and communities monitor existing canopy and identify areas for planting efforts,” Mr Carey said. “In 2024, we announced the revised residential codes, which included incentives to retain existing trees as well as minimum planting and soft landscaping standards for new developments. “These reforms built on the apartment codes released in 2019 that include minimum requirements for deep soil zones, tree planting and soft landscaping in higher density developments.”