Overview
Sydney residents will be donning their gardening gloves and taking to the streets in an attempt to vivify the city’s increasingly banal footpaths.
The City of Sydney has instigated a new gardening initiative, designed to increase the flora next to our city's streets, and thereby protecting local habitats, improving air quality and filtering storm water run-off.
University of Technology urban ecologist, Dr Jane Tarran, revealed that increasing urbanisation and lack of vegetation throughout the city has caused a loss of connection with birds and wildlife and a gradual decline in contact with nature in general.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP believes that “trees and other planting help absorb carbon pollution and help cool our city” and will thus help counteract the negative effects of urbanisation.
The Footpath Gardening Policy has been developed in order to allow the public to establish a garden or nature strip without a development application. Council adopted the recommendation to allocate an impressive $50,000 for seeds and plant boxes to help kickstart this important process for the first six months.
As well as having positive effects on the natural ecology, the increase in trees is also expected to be beneficial for human wellbeing as Dr Tarran says “they have a restorative power..., providing recovery from mental fatigue and information overload”.