Melburnians email trees in City Council initiative
It is one thing to get up close and personal with nature by hugging a tree, but now you can email one and if you are lucky, you might even get a reply.
Melburnians can now contact any one of the city's 70,000 trees via the 'correspondence program', a Melbourne City Council endorsed scheme, which aims to connect people with the environment.
It may sound barking mad, but an increasing number of people are taking part in the initiative, inspired and led by the council's urban landscape team.
One participant wrote: "I am stuck inside and am so jealous of you soaking up the sun. You seem to be having a ball out there today. What did you get up to on the weekend?"
To which the Chinese Elm replied: "Sorry that you are stuck inside. I am really enjoying stretching my stomata and giving my chloroplasts a good workout. I spent the weekend well hydrated and preparing for the summer ahead. You?"
Another tree lover emailed the Casuarina Cunninghamiana: "I said hi on Friday when I walked past. I hope you noticed."
The tree replied: "You probably thought I was just fluttering my leaves in the wind. I have no hands to wave back, but I gave you a wink."
Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle said the initiative was prompted by members of the public enquiring about their favourite tree.
"In Melbourne, people love their trees. We were just surprised at how much and that they'd want to personally correspond with them, but apparently they do.
"If a school child writes in and asks about a particular tree, we try to provide the information and this is a fun way of doing it."
Users can contact a specific tree using an interactive database, which also contains details including the tree's life expectancy, ID and specie.
The team replies to two or three emails on behalf of the tree each fortnight.
For more details visit the website.
News break – December 8
