Video: Flemington Road’s Lemon-scented Gum
Watch: The Lemon Scented Gum from algarhythm on Vimeo
This short 5 min video shows the chain sawing of the 94 year old Lemon scented gum on Flemington Rd Parkville in Victoria Australia, by VicRoads on June 25 2016, despite it’s heritage, environmental and community value. The tree is listed on the significant trees register maintained by National Trust of Victoria, has had a baby born underneath it in the 1980s and people have written love letters to it. I wanted to show the abundant bird life living in this tree (about half way through) and also document how a healthy tree specimen has been destroyed for extremely spurious reasons. In this era of climate change we should not be allowing trees to be cut down that don’t need to be.
Listen 1: Anna Lanigan speaks to Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle on talkback with Jon Faine, ABC 774, 6th July 2016
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Listen 2: A song for Flemington Road’s much-loved Lemon-scented Gum – “Lemon Scented Sanity” by Mary Holdsworth & Patricia Mortensen from the CD “Heart Upon The Shore”
Get involved: join Guardians of the Flemington Road Gum on facebook: meet 7am this Saturday 9th July at the tree (120 Flemington Road, Parkville) for a public meeting
Posters and flyers you can print/distribute to show support for the Lemon-Scented Gum campaign
Additional information
Petitioning VicRoads Our Lemon-scented Gum is worth saving
How community action re-politicised transport planning in Victoria
It emerged as the key issue in the Victorian election and arguably led to the downfall of a government – but the East-West Link tollway also set a blueprint for community activism with impact.
The Centre for Urban Research’s Dr Crystal Legacy has researched the community-led anti-tollway campaign and examined how it came to have such a significant political effect.
The proposed 18km East-West Link tollway was designed to link Melbourne’s Western Ring Road and Eastern Freeway but community opposition to the project spread when the Napthine Liberal government signed contracts in 2014 to construct the multi-billion dollar project before taking the plan to an election.
Legacy says the government’s decision to remove the community from the transport investment decision-making process and its attempts to depoliticise the decision only served to “hyper-politicise” the project.
“Politically engaged citizens will go to great lengths to create their own spaces where deliberations about the transport problems, priorities and investments can occur, but in a manner that allows alternative transport futures such as public transport to also be considered,” she says.
Campaigners engaged heavily in social media, community-led forums and one-to-one consultation sites to garner support for their plight. Continue Reading…
‘Peak car’ makes building freeways risky
Falling car use is one of the most important trends in infrastructure and it should be discussed more than it is by decision makers, an infrastructure summit has been told. Craig Abraham
AFR: ‘Peak car’ makes building freeways risky by Geoff Winestock (11 June 2015)
A worldwide trend away from driving cars should make investors and governments more cautious about building big new motorways, says John Daley, chief executive of the Grattan Institute.
Mr Daley told The Australian Financial Review Infrastructure Summit that falling car use was one of the most important trends in infrastructure and it should be discussed more than it was by decision makers.
“We should be very careful about the assumption that road usage is going to keep rising in the future at the same rate as it has in the past,” Mr Daley said.
The most recent Bureau of Transport Infrastructure and Regional Economics data suggested passenger kilometres travelled was falling or stable, he said. This was in line with global trends, which suggested a significant change was happening in all developed countries. It was confirmed by other measures, such as falling car ownership, people obtaining drivers licenses later and fewer people having drivers licences. Continue Reading…
