22 Churchill Street, Mont Albert VIC 3127

Whitehorse Council has declared a climate emergency. One of Council's responsibilities is to make decisions on applications for tree removal. It has as a guide the Whitehorse Urban Forest Strategy. According to the Urban Forest Strategy:

"... canopy cover across Whitehorse was measured at 18% (DEWLP,2019a) . . . This translates to a net loss of 10% of the canopy which was present in 2014.
". . . the aim is to first halt the decline in canopy cover and then work towards achieving a target of 27% canopy cover, in view to reach 30% by 2050."

Most tree removal is occurring on private land. On this basis, and that the trees are stated to be protected, I feel it is necessary for Council to reject the application.

I agree with Sally. The removal of protected trees is counter intuitive to the end goal of improving our canopy. We should all be working together to 'green' our suburbs and not remove all existing, established vegetation.