The Sydney Morning Herald featured Creating Canopies Project Manager, Danielle Packer, in an article on Saturday 28th October.
You can read the article here: ‘People would tell me I was wasting my time’: Meet the defenders of Sydney’s green heartbeat.
Ms Packer’s section is as follows:
The tree planter
Danielle Packer says trees “invite people to a space”. Packer is managing the second Creating Canopies project – a Greater Sydney Landcare project – to cool Sydney by planting 200,000 native trees and shrubs in areas lacking shade.
That includes hospitals, golf courses, private lands and public parks.
One of her tree planting projects is transforming Discovery Park in Liverpool.
“It was just lawn, so much sun, and bland and boring. The planting was adding something worthwhile, something beautiful,” she said.
Nobody visited the park, she said, and it was always empty. Now, she’s waiting for the trees to grow and provide canopy for the people and animals she hopes will enjoy them. Frustratingly, it will take years. “Old-growth trees, that are 100 to 200 years old, give us great shade. A hollow will take 100 years to develop and be occupied.”
But there are bright spots even now. During a visit to a site at Olympic Park she saw a nest in a young wattle tree. “It’s exciting to see the trees doing well,” she said.
About the Creating Canopies project
Creating Canopies is a project of Landcare NSW and Greater Sydney Landcare to plant 200,000 trees across Greater Sydney between 2023 and 2025 to mitigate urban heat. It is proudly funded by the NSW Government.
