Making our city greener

CAIRNS has the potential to become one of the greenest cities in Australia.

The amount of green space is quite staggering, from the Esplanade running along the city’s foreshore, through to the beautiful Botanic Gardens at Edge Hill.

There are more than 600 parks and reserves scattered across the regional council area, from Eubenangee in the south, to Ellis Beach in the north and as far west as the Goldsborough Valley.

At one stage former mayor Kevin Byrne wanted to replicate Singapore’s garden city vision with tree-lined boulevards especially in the run into the CBD from the south and the north.

A sign, “Cairns City in a Garden”, still exists at Earlville on the Bruce Highway but the theme did not develop as it was planned to.

However, his greatest achievement was the multi-million dollar upgrade of the Botanic Gardens precinct, particularly turning Collins Avenue into a meandering street with lush greenery on both sides and in the centre.

The current Cairns Regional Council is well aware of how vital it is to have first class green credentials and the latest state of the environment report reveals that in the past year a further 19,000 trees have been planted.

As well, greenhouse emissions have fallen by nearly 5 per cent, electricity consumption by 5 per cent, fuel use by 3 per cent, water use by 4 per cent, nearly 60 per cent of waste has been diverted from landfill and one megawatt of solar power has been generated

The council is close to achieving its target to halve its greenhouse emissions by 2020.

But there is a lot more to be done to make us even greener. Nick Dalton Deputy editor