Just before scooting off to the UK for a couple of weeks, I joined a small group of women down on Durham Street.
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We unfurled some crocheted and knitted banners in honour of the London Plane trees that are now on death row.
The idea is not to try to save them (the council's intentions there seem set in stone) but to honour their lives and what they've given our community in terms of cleaner air, habitat for a host of organisms and aesthetic values.
Over in the UK (yes, I was conscious of all the carbon I burning to get there and back), amidst the whole Brexit crisis, I noticed all the grand old trees right there in London's city streets.
Underneath the footpaths, there are a couple of thousand years worth of infrastructure going back to the Romans.
As a casual observer, it appeared the attitude to mature trees is quite different to the attitude here.
As a casual observer, it appeared the attitude to mature trees is quite different to the attitude here.
- BCCAN secretary Tracy Sorenson on her trip to the UK
Closer to home, another approach to London Plane trees has been taken by the community of Barraba in the Tamworth shire.
The trees down the main street were in for the chop and replacement, but defended by the local community.
The 58 London Plane trees are now flourishing under an “intense care regime” which involves a six-monthly monitoring program developed by council staff to record the general health of each tree, growth rates and any disturbance to infrastructure.
Having said that, we in Bathurst Community Climate Action Network welcome most of the other aspects of Bathurst Regional Council's tree-planting program.
It is wonderful to go around town and see lots of new little trees everywhere.
These will stand us in good stead as temperatures continue to rise.
There is one quibble with the program, in that we were expecting the section of road between the Blayney Road Common and the golf course to be planted with native trees rather than exotics.
This might have created a better “flow” between the natives of the golf course and the natives that have been planted in the Blayney Road Common.
Still, overall, despite our grumpiness (we are grumpy over the London Plane trees), BCCAN is delighted with the overall trend, which is to fill our streets with more trees.
