Logan City, Australia

Implementation, Impact and Replicability

How has the initiative had a ripple effect beyond the scope of the initiative itself, thereby demonstrating a change in the city’s and/or its partners’ way of working with plants?

Some of the initiatives that have demonstrated high levels of learning and transferability include:

• City wide Ecological Significance Map – mapping all the land in the city with an ecological significance value – incorporating science-based data such as vegetation cover, wildlife habitat, corridor mapping, waterway and wetland mapping and threatened species sightings and habitat.
• Environmental grants – provides over $150,000 each year to our community to deliver community led and community instigated environmental projects.
• Environmental Conservations Partnerships – a program dedicated to supporting private landowners to protect and enhance vegetation on their property – a range of incentives are provided including funding, advice, free trees and workshops.
• Environmental events and activities – new innovative and topical series of events are rolled out annually including our Logan Eco Action Festival – these are free events with LEAF attracting around 10,000 visitors each year from a broad range of cities and areas.  The event showcases innovations in relation to building climate change resilience, natural environment and supporting the community to develop environmental stewardship.
• Collaborative leadership of a regional Land for Wildlife private land conservation program – involving 12 local governments which provides incentives, support and advice to private land holders in bushland conservation and ecological management.
• Establishment of the only local government environmental offset policy and delivery program across Queensland and possibly Australia.  This innovative policy ensures a net gain of actual trees in the ground is achieved even when there is unavoidable clearing through development.

How have other cities expressed interest in the initiative, or what potential does it have to interest other cities and be customised to their own circumstances?

Logan City Council is well-placed to drive broader uptake of living green for biodiversity in Australia and across the globe, by providing case studies of our community led natural environmental and waterway strategic initiatives as well as our commitment at enhancing organisational governance in relation to biodiversity and environmental management. Some additional very transferable learnings and initiatives include:

• Albert River and Logan River connectivity and activation plans – including river trails, kayaking and canoeing events, enhancement and installation of pontoons, waterway furniture and boardwalks.
• Fish Habitat enhancement projects including innovative tree root ball submergence to create new fish habitat.
• Fish barrier removal projects including one on Slacks Creek that increased the number of fish being able to migrate up stream by over 1,000%.
• Revegetation of over 77 hectares of land with over 77,000 trees planted funded by development industry at no cost to residents.
• Delivery of the Sustainability Policy and Framework – adopted by Council to embed sustainability in all decision-making and activities, including climate action.
• Development of an Energy Management Framework and automated Energy Management Dashboard that:
  • allows us to monitor and track electricity use, costs and carbon emissions over time; and
  • help build organisation capacity and awareness of the value of energy efficiency
• Delivery of a range of innovative actions to transition our fleet to a cleaner and more sustainable fleet including
• City of Logan Carbon Reduction Strategy and Action Plan – provides a road map to achieve carbon neutrality by 2022.