PRESS RELEASE: THE TREE COUNCIL

For immediate release - Sunday 13 October 2013

Celebrate Tree Week with The Tree Council

The inaugural New Zealand Tree Week begins today and runs until Sunday 20 October.

The Tree Council has introduced this initiative to highlight the importance of trees to our everyday lives.

“Trees provide benefits to human health and wellbeing, air and water quality and wildlife” says Tree Council spokesperson Sean Freeman.

“Urban trees in particular remove large amounts of air pollution and treat huge volumes of stormwater, reducing runoff and pollution into our streams and harbours and preventing erosion and sedimentation. They do all this throughout their 100s of years of lifespan at no cost to us.” Sean says.

You can hear Queensland arborist Sean Freeman speak on the value of trees in the urban environment this Wednesday 16 October at 7.30pm, following The Tree Council’s AGM at 7pm, at the Fickling Centre, corner of Mt Eden and Mt Albert Roads, Mt Roskill. This is a free lecture and open to the public. All are welcome to attend both the AGM and the lecture.

The second Tree Week event for 2013 is a Tree Week bus tour on Sunday 20 October,
$20 for members and $25 for non-members. This is a bus tour of Auckland’s great trees led by Penny Cliffin, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Landscape Architecture, at UNITEC Institute of Technology. The tour will commence at UNITEC at 9.30am visiting Western Springs, Western Park and Myers Park before a lunch stop (BYO) in Albert Park and then across the road to the University collection, returning to UNITEC by 3pm. Numbers are limited so please reserve your place by emailing thetreecouncil@ihug.co.nz

Full details are on The Tree Council’s website at www.thetreecouncil.org.nz

ENDS

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