The ACT government has agreed in-principle to create a city-wide tree curator position to help manage the territory's precious tree resource.
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The government also says the successful candidate won't necessarily need a background in horticulture or aboriculture - something the ACT Commissioner for Sustainability and the Environment, Bob Neil, disagrees with.
The government has also agreed in principle to committing an extra $4 million a year in ongoing funding to Territory and Municipal Services to improve its maintenance of street and park trees but warns it is subject to budget constraints and competing priorities.
It has also agreed to dump the controversial Urban Forest Renewal Program in favour of a system that will still see older trees replaced but also focus more on the care and maintenance of existing and newly planted trees.
The then commissioner for sustainability and the environment, Maxine Cooper, issued her report in March last year into the government's tree management practices, advocating more funding for TAMS and a greater ''care and maintenance'' approach to managing the city's 700,000 street and park trees.
In turn, the government has agreed in principle to most of her 44 recommendations or sub-recommendations, but actually agreed to just seven while rejecting four.
The government's response, tabled in the Legislative Assembly, makes it clear budget constraints will determine whether the unfunded initiatives such as the tree curator do go ahead.
Chief Minister Katy Gallagher told the Assembly that the government was ''fully committed to improving the care and protection of Canberra's treed landscape''.
However, she also acknowledged that choices had to be made in ''allocating limited resources, for example, protecting ageing trees versus planting trees in a new suburb, and should be governed by an equity criteria''.
City Services director Fleur Flanery said TAMS had taken great strides in the last two years to ensure the care and maintenance of trees over their whole life cycle. It had also worked to proactively plan the maintenance of trees rather than to simply react to calls from the public.
A new policy now meant trees under three years were watered regularly during warmer months, with GPS technology contributing data that would keep watering records up to date.
In response to Dr Cooper's report, the government has agreed to develop a tree irrigation policy with the condition, location and importance of a tree determining its priority for watering. Ms Flanery said that acknowledged older trees also needed watering during warmer periods.
It has also agreed in principle to ensuring officers conducting tree assessments have minimum qualifications in arboriculture or horticulture or a high-level of training and experience.
The government agreed in principle to ensuring that tree removal is avoided wherever possible, that removed trees be replaced unless circumstances prohibit it and that new trees be managed for three years, although it qualifies that support by saying those ''procedures are already in place''.
The government says it is also considering on-the-spot fines for people who damage trees on public land or park underneath trees on public land.
If the position of tree curator was funded, the government says it would not be essential for the successful candidate to have primary qualifications in horticulture or arboriculture because others in their team had those skills. ''Professional experience'' and ''objectivity'' would be more highly valued.