Our big green city

Melbourne is a city of green possibilities – green roofs, green laneways, more trees, more plants and more green space. 

At the City of Melbourne we’re passionate about turning grey to green and making Melbourne one of the greenest cities in the world in which to live, visit and do business. 

We’ve been working hard for 10 years to create a big, green city. 

We were one of the first cities in the world to launch our Urban Forest Strategy in 2012, now were half-way through. 

Did you know that over the past decade we’ve planted more than 47,000 trees? 
 
And that our urban forest is made up of more than 78,000 public trees across the municipality? 

Not only is a healthy urban forest vital for the wellbeing of our community, trees help cool the city and help mitigate against the impacts of climate change. 
 
So we’re planting a diverse range of species, such as the Chinese Parasol Tree (Firmiana simplex) and Pau Ferro (Libidibia ferra), to improve the resilience of our urban forest. 
 
With all the extra trees, we have a canopy cover of 25.22 per cent, so we’re well on our way to achieving our goal of 40 per cent canopy cover by 2040 and a greener, cooler city in a forest. 

Our Urban Forest Strategy guides our work and we continue to seek community feedback on important issues like our Urban Forest Precinct Plans, tree maintenance and water management.  
 
We want Melburnians to be a driving part of our city greening efforts.  
 
We already have more than 700 Citizen Foresters who help collect data about the urban forest. 

Join us on our campaign to continue to grow Our Big Green City. 

Plant a plant. Take a photo to share on social media using #OurBigGreenCity 
 
Join us at our upcoming community workshops, read more about our Urban Forest Precinct Plans or let us know your thoughts via our online survey.