Metropolitan Adelaide has its first Urban Greening Strategy to increase tree canopy, cool the city and boost biodiversity across metropolitan Adelaide.

An investment in urban greening is an investment in meeting the challenges of climate change, urban development, biodiversity loss and community health and wellbeing.

This strategy provides a mechanism for government and non-government partners to work together to achieve more, by enabling projects that share the load and bridge the gaps between jurisdictions. The strategy identifies priority actions that:

fill known gaps or scale up what is already working well
unlock metropolitan-wide benefits
harness cross-sector collaboration and/or co-investment.

The 6 priority areas for action, include:

Cooler, greener and healthier development: Facilitating good design outcomes for development that protect existing trees and provide sufficient space for new urban greening.
Government leading by example: The role of state and local government in driving better greening outcomes and to show leadership in this space through trialling new ideas, commissioning research and implementing innovative solutions for greening the land that they own and manage.
Building nature back in: Protecting and improving biodiversity in urban environments both on public and private land.
Future-proofing our urban forest: Making sure our urban greenery is resilient to the impacts of climate change through increasing diversity of plantings, diversity within species and ensuring adequate water supply.
Improving greening equity: Making sure that all residents across metropolitan Adelaide have access to urban green spaces and the benefits they provide from a cooling, productivity and health and wellbeing view.
Scaling up impact by working together: Different government and non-government organisations working together to enable greening action to happen at a metropolitan scale and have collective impact.

City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters: The St Peters Street upgrade improved pedestrian and cyclist access, added 200 new trees and landscaping, and upgraded local stormwater management to create a more sustainable and connected urban space.

Protecting and increasing urban greenery relies on not just a love for trees and green spaces, but also a clear strategy to improve legislation, policy and capacity-building. That is what this strategy does! It sets a long-term vision of a resilient and liveable Adelaide for all: leafier, cooler and more biodiverse, and identifies practical actions to turn this vision into reality.

We thank our partners – government and non-government – for their contributions, energy and expertise in shaping this document.

All sectors and public and private landowners across metropolitan Adelaide have an important role to play in greening our city. By joining forces – having shared priorities and delivering complementary activities – we will grow our tree canopy, cool our city and boost biodiversity.

At Green Adelaide, we help bring people together to carry out urban greening projects. Our role includes collecting data and insights, being the main point of contact, tracking the progress of the strategy, and guiding its delivery.