Trees and heatwave morbidity

 

Credit: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine estimated that this year’s heat waves across Europe resulted in an estimated 16,500 extra deaths. “The study covered cities representing about 30% of Europe’s population, meaning the true death toll is likely to be far higher.”

Credit: Australian Climate Service

In November 2023, the federal government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare published a media release titled “Extreme weather is leading to more injury hospitalisations, with heat being the main cause”.

Native forest - Mt Worth State Park

The Albanese government’s Net Zero Plan released just this month states, “Land based abatement, particularly reforestation, is the most cost effective abatement to help reach net zero emissions in 2050”.

Precious urban woodland - Elizabeth Cl Drouin

Indisputably, we are not going to achieve net zero without reducing emissions. It is equally indisputable that protecting and enhancing our native forests, woodlands and urban tree cover will go a long way toward combatting the effects of global warming.

 

Open space or ecological desert?

Based on community surveys, a summary of needs for open spaces across Baw Baw Shire, was developed in 2011. In 2023, further community consultation was performed. The 103 page Draft Open Space Strategy 2025/35, full of beautiful images, tables, graphs and lots and lots of inspirational and aspirational statements, is currently available for downloading.

The vision for the Open Space Strategy for Baw Baw is, “.. to create an equitably distributed network (of open spaces) that is liveable, high-quality, and promotes a healthy lifestyle, while also enhancing biodiversity to strengthen the resilience of the Baw Baw community.”

Mown grass is costly to maintain and provides very few benefits to the environment

The open space assessment for Drouin predicts a 22% reduction of open space from 73m² per person in 2025, to 57m² per person in 2035! The percentage of the dwellings within desired walking access to a park in Drouin is 87%. The optimum figure is 95%.

It is worth noting that two of the very highest priorities listed by the community were to increase tree planting dramatically and to focus on enhancing the biodiversity of our urban spaces.

An urban garden with some native plants is sometimes all it takes to see nature

In addition to the Draft Open Space Strategy, the Baw Baw Shire is currently developing a Nature Plan which aims to, “provide a long-term strategic document to guide how we protect, enhance and connect with nature in Baw Baw.”

Let us hope that elements from both the open space strategy and the nature plan come to fruition. (I hope I can live long enough – Ed).

 

Urban birds

According to the Australian Government’s Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (April 2025), about 73% of the human  population live in our major cities. 25% live in inner and outer regional areas and the remaining 2% live in remote places. 90% of Australia’s population occupy less than 1% of our land area. Australia is one of the most urbanised nations in the world.

Continued population growth and the unbridled sprawl of urban areas resulting in significant environmental decline, greatly influences the diversity of bird species. Urban birds must cope with alterations to their habitat, threats from increased human density like increased traffic, noise and light pollution, domestic cats and dogs, etc. Some birds adapt well to urban areas and some are seriously threatened by it.

These birds mostly thrive in urban situations. Clockwise from top left: Masked Lapwing, Little Corella, Magpie, Noisy Miner, Rainbow Lorikeet and Pied Currawong.

The list of urban birds that reside permanently or seasonally in Drouin is extensive. The Friends of Drouin’s Trees bird surveys regularly report 20 to 40 species at their monitoring sites in and around the town. Our list of birds of Drouin is well over 100 species.

Research by Latrobe University suggests that birds in urban areas are either ‘adapters’ or ‘exploiters’, and some are outright ‘avoiders’.

The Eastern Rosella, Eastern Yellow Robin, Grey Butcherbird, Superb Fairy-wren, Kookaburra and Grey Fantail all tolerate urban places but in truth, probably orefer undisturbed bush.

Some urban birds are scavengers and they feed on our scraps. Some are here in winter because it is too cold in the alps. Some come here in spring and summer to breed. Most of Drouin’s birds are here, often year-round, because of our magnificent tree cover (at present), native understory (at present), and our wetlands. The habitat is suitable (at present).

These avians tend to shun urbanization: Crested Shrike-tit, Fan-tailed Cuckoo, Golden Whistler, Yellow-faced Honeyeater, Scarlet Robin and Grey Currawong.

If we value nature in our urban spaces, if we want to attract native wildlife, native birds, mammals, etc., we should be preserving, protecting, and increasing our native trees and shrubs. At a domestic garden level, we as residents can help by planting natives, adding a water bowl, and locking up our cats!

At a local government level, development approvals need to consider natural environment elements much more seriously. Offsetting is proven mostly not to work and should be replaced with onsetting: focus instead on local and community-based environment projects that deliver urban environments that have habitat value. Corridor connectivity should be elevated to a much higher status in urban design.

We could and should be doing a whole lot more for our urban birds.