Tree canopy for metro Adelaide area down to 17%, below acceptable 30%, Green Adelaide study in 2022 finds
An example of the tree loss (in red) and gain (green) from the Green Adelaide study of the tree canopy in the Adelaide metropolitan area in 2022.
Image courtesy Green Adelaide
About 17% of metropolitan Adelaide – from southern Onkaparinga to northern Gawler – was covered in tree canopy, below an acceptable 30%, according to 2022 built environment data collected by South Australian government agency Green Adelaide.
In the first study of its kind involving state and local government, the data showed that, between 2018-19 and 2022, 2,959,211 square metres of tree canopy was lost, with 1,599,908 square metres of the loss in residential areas. Tree removal was often done for new housing, or along some major arterial roads. The Green Adelaide data showed tree planting was less than tree removal, with 1,268,988 square metres of trees planted between 2019 and 2022
In 2023, South Australia was ranked No.1 in a new national trees scorecard for Australian states by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature Australia. Despite scoring an “average” 65 out of 100, South Australia still topped the nation for having 58% of its forests and woodland intact, strong conservation commitments and banning native forest logging years ago.
The South Australian government only scored 25 out of 100 for transparency over land clearing and logging restoration, with the report finding that 32,714 hectares were cleared across the state over the 2018 to 2021 financial years. That equated to two trees disappearing every minute, according to the scorecard, and pointed to plummeting numbers of endangered glossy black cockatoos on Kangaroo Island as woodland habitat was cleared.
World Widelife Fund for Nature Australia scientists released the Trees Scorecard 2023 after analysing forest and woodland clearing data alongside national enforcement, protection and government commitments around native forest logging and land clearing. They called for all states to do better, releasing damning evidence using the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scienfic and Industrial Research Organisation) habitat condition assessment system that shows Australia had “the highest rate of deforestation in the developed world”.
According to the report, Australia was also the only developed nation on the list of 24 global deforestation fronts alongside the Brazilian Amazon, the Congo Basin and Indonesian Borneo. This was despite Australia signing an agreement in 2021 along with 100 other countries at the 26th United National Climate Change Conference of Parties to end deforestation by 2023.
New South Wales and Queensland dragged the nation down with “very poor” ratings and ongoing extensive clearing of native forest in the national scorecard.
